


The Drengr & the War-Thegn

by quills_at_dawn



Series: A Man or a God [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Assassins's Creed Valhalla, Cultural Differences, Fix-It, M/M, Male Eivor (Assassin's Creed), Size Kink, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28046865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quills_at_dawn/pseuds/quills_at_dawn
Summary: “We Danes and Norse have a reputation for sacking and pillaging but we come here as builders and farmers,” he said softly, stopping Leofrith in his tracks, “To seek destruction will only lead to ruin. You have wasted enough of your life on Burgred. If you must put it in service to someone, Ceolbert is already more worthy than Burgred ever was, and he will need a protector.”After their encounter in Repton, Eivor offers Leofrith another path.
Relationships: Eivor/Leofrith (Assassin's Creed)
Series: A Man or a God [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071254
Comments: 70
Kudos: 168





	1. Truth or Glory

**Author's Note:**

> So this started as a pretext for Eivor to bring Leofrith back to Ravensthorpe and meander into a nice fling while they raise Ceolbert.
> 
> But then Sciropscire happened and now I have to rewrite the whole stupid saga.
> 
> Male Eivor. Loosely follows the game events until it diverges (you'll know when, trust me) so spoilers throughout. Haven't finished the game, mostly writing as I go.  
> Alternating PoVs. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Many thanks to [softestpunk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestpunk/pseuds/softestpunk) for beta reading and to [zemhyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zemyr) for being my expert on all things Norse <3 

**TRUTH OR GLORY**

_“Then choose. Truth… or glory.”_

_— Odin_

Eivor looked down at the great war-thegn, beaten and down on one knee before him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ceolbert’s involuntary appeal.

“ _An honourable thegn fighting a dishonourable war,_ ” murmured Odin beside him.

“Burgred abandoned him, betrayed his trust,” Eivor countered, a twitch of discomfort between his shoulder blades at the thought, “If I were Leofrith I would want to know.”

“ _Why rob him of this last glory?_ ” Odin pressed, “ _A warrior ready to meet his god and bask in his grace. To live will only lead him to shame._ ”

“It’s not an oath he would keep if he knew the truth.”

“ _Then choose. Truth… or glory?_ ”

Eivor’s gaze continued to rest on the dark head, so fierce just moments ago and now bowed in defeat and resignation.

Odin was right. Leofrith accepted death, he was waiting for it. If he died now he would do so in the certainty that he had been loyal and dutiful to the end, at the cost of his own life. Everything Eivor knew about the man led him to believe this was what he wanted. Perhaps, even, he would have preferred to simply die in combat, without the need to wait for the death blow.

And yet. And yet…

Outside the bubble of his existence with Odin, Eivor could feel Ceolbert’s agitation and he could hear, almost feel, Leofrith’s ragged breath.

He still lived.

If he had killed the thegn in the heat of battle Eivor probably would not have given the matter a second thought and even if he had he would, perhaps, have thought it a good death.

But Leofrith still lived.

An honourable thegn, on this everyone was agreed — the dishonourable king and his lady who had led him to his slaughter, Odin who could see into the heart of all warriors, even Ivarr who despised him, and Ceolbert, whose opinion of Leofrith he trusted above anyone else’s.

Could death — even expected, even accepted — ever be honourable when it came in the name of a lie?

_Truth or Glory._

“Stand, Leofrith. Live to fight another day.”

Surprise from the Saxon, then the accusation of a lie, so weak neither made a show of believing it. Leofrith’s loyalty was to his word given not the king he knew in his heart was unworthy, Eivor was sure of it now.

He too knelt and met the aggrieved man’s gaze.

“All this fighting, it’s for nothing. For no one. To betray one so trusted, so close… it’s a dishonour worth a thousand deaths.”

The talk of scrolls and zealots was baffling but Eivor had no doubts about the earnestness with which Leofrith spoke of them and the urgency of the task, and so he nodded.

“Where will you go now?”

The thegn glanced at him, a hard look of courage creased with pain.

“Rome.”

There were many more things unspoken as he swayed to his feet and put a heavy hand on Ceolbert’s shoulder.

A waste, Eivor thought to himself as Leofrith approached to pass by him.

“We Danes and Norse have a reputation for sacking and pillaging but we come here as builders and farmers,” he said softly, stopping Leofrith in his tracks, “To seek destruction will only lead to ruin. You have wasted enough of your life on Burgred. If you must put it in service to someone, Ceolbert is already more worthy than Burgred ever was, and he will need a protector.”

Leofrith’s hesitation vibrated beside him as the words, coolly spoken, broke through the heat shimmer of his anger and pride.

“Think on it. If that is what you choose, I will speak for you.”

The barest of nods and the thegn continued on his way.

“Come. Let’s get you back,” Eivor said to the new aetheling and by the time they passed the gate, Leofrith was nowhere to be seen.

It was only later, after he’d seen to Ceolbert’s superficial wounds and heard his admission that the Mercian warlord had only toyed with him, when the newly-crowned Ceolwulf II left his son in the hands of his Dane allies for safekeeping, that Eivor sensed the thegn’s presence again and caught sight of him watching them and listening in, half-concealed behind a wall. He wondered whose reaction Leofrith most feared — Ivarr had already once planted a battle-axe in his shoulder and even Ceolwulf both admired his loyalty and distrusted it as it had belonged to the king he had just deposed.

Once it was agreed Ceolbert would go to Ravensthorpe, the group disbanded and only Eivor lingered.

“You will protect the boy?” he asked when Leofrith finally joined him.

“You have my word.”

And so while Leofrith kept out of Ivarr’s sight, Eivor spoke with Sigurd and vouched for the thegn.

“You are sure he can be trusted?”

“I am. So is Ceolbert.”

“Very well. See they are settled in, brother, I will see you soon.”

Standing on a rise, he watched the three of them ride off along the river until they were out of sight then turned away. He needed to tie up loose ends in Repton and to speak to the Ragnarsson brothers but Leofrith’s urgency still rang in his ear and he would have to move quickly if they were to stop in Venonis on the way home.

The crew were in high spirits, all the won battles of the last few days having now culminated in this crowning victory and as he crouched on a high pillar scanning Venonis for the statue and scroll with the light falling all around him, Eivor’s eyes went to the bridge he’d so recently crossed with Burgred in tow and knew it had been worth it. The Ragnarsson alliance was solid — the weight of the armband and axe the brothers had gifted him was a reminder of it — and so was the one with the Mercian throne — Ceolbert taken not as a hostage but offered in friendship and respect for safekeeping and training. He thought of Soma and the sincere alliance he’d formed in Grantebridge.

A jarl betrayed by a lieutenant, a thegn betrayed by his king, and the smoke of Valka’s prediction clouded Eivor’s vision until his gaze flowed downriver towards Ravensthorpe, relief welling up in him at the thought of going home, of washing off the blood and stench of treachery that seemed to trail him wherever he went.

Home they soon were, disembarking at the familiar dock flanked by the two great statues of the Wise One to greet them.

Eivor meandered up to the longhouse, pausing at the barracks and to speak with Gunnar and sell off some trinkets to Yanli, giving his mind time to return to the present place.

Ceolbert’s voice mingled with Randvi’s as Eivor stepped into the dark of the longhouse to join them in the map room, and he was surprised at how pleased he was to see the young aetheling there, looking clean and well-kept, filled with curiosity and happy chatter.

As he left to go to his room, a shadow detached itself from the dark corner beyond Sigurd’s throne.

“Did you destroy the scroll?”

“There is only ash in its place,” Eivor confirmed, looking Leofrith over.

The thegn had done nothing for himself since he’d arrived. Still wore the full weight of his armour, his many wounds still dirty, some still bleeding.

The dark gaze that had met Eivor’s now dropped.

“I owe you answers.”

“You owe me nothing but I will listen to anything you wish to tell me,” Eivor murmured, “We should wash before it is dark. Have you eaten?”

Leofrith simply stared at him in incomprehension.

He was not present, Eivor saw. His mind was still in Tamworth and in Repton, in Venonis and in Rome, still trapped in the past and the things he had done there. He was still a war-thegn, hands still wet with the day’s-blood of dead Danes, surrounded by enemies and victims.

“Fetch some medical supplies and a change of clothes from the barracks,” Eivor asked of a youth sitting at one the long tables who immediately bobbed his head and ran off.

He continued towards his room.

“Come,” he bade with a nod to Leofrith, “After we have eaten, I will see to your shoulder.”

“My shoulder?” the thegn echoed absently, automatically following.

“If you do not trust any other to stitch it up, perhaps you will trust me,” Eivor offered, “I am no healer but I have done it before.”

There was no answer and he turned to see why Leofrith had stopped short and found him staring at the white wolf watching them from its chosen spot by the bed.

“Chewy won’t hurt you.”

Stripped of their armour, they went out to the pond behind the stables and Eivor ducked into Valka’s hut a moment only to find, when he reemerged, the Saxon still standing at the water’s edge where he’d left him.

Docile and dazed, he had to be undressed and led into the water, all of which Eivor did with methodical calm, and Leofrith stood in the middle of the pond, watching still uncomprehending, as Eivor went to stand beneath the waterfall.

There would be no time today for washing his hair and scrubbing his skin until nothing was left on it but the sharp smell of lye. Leofrith’s wounds needed tending and likely his mind too. So Eivor stood under the rushing water, felt it wash away the dried blood and caked battle-grime, the layered sweat and the musky scent of horse, felt it pound away the weariness and tension from his battered body. There was time for this at least.

Leofrith’s wounds were too deep and too raw for this treatment so Eivor led him by the hand past the curtain of water into the secret space behind it, bade him sit in the shallow water while he lit the torches, then set about his self-appointed task.

He rinsed with clear water the blood-and-mud-matted hair and the stinging gashes he found cut into the sun-darkened skin. He moved closer to run his hands through the thick hair, blacker still now the dust was out of it, so close to the thegn he make out thesmell of leather and war that rose from the back of his neck even with the stench of the last few days stripped from him, and feel the furnace-heat that radiated from him. Even bathed in the cool air and the cool water, Leofrith felt burning to the touch. Around the irritated wounds, yes, and perhaps some of it was the last of the battle-fever, but beyond that the grinding together of rage and frustration, like a blade against a whetstone.

Leofrith sat in the shallow water, still and breathless as a dead thing and yet beneath his questing fingers, Eivor could feel the enormous strength locked away in the hard muscles, saw the way they rippled beneath the skin whenever he ventured near a raw wound. He remembered the ease with which Leofrith had handled his greatsword, swinging wide and lunging quick as though he’d carried nothing more than a spear. Strength, yes, but also discipline and training.

The powerful body was covered in wounds, old and new, and aside from the horrific wound in his shoulder, the worst of them had been inflicted by Eivor himself and he now cleaned them as painstakingly as he could, making a mental note of which would heal on their own and which would need help.

The thegn would recover, Eivor was sure of it, he’d seen enough of Leofrith’s relationship with Ceolbert to believe that it would breathe life back into him. But for now he was still in the grip of the death he’d accepted so completely only hours ago and that had, perhaps, taken some part of him. The change in his fate had been too sudden and while he tried to pick up the lost threads of his destiny he was astray, a damned wraith, a death-bringer in a village of the living.

Eivor knew this wound went deeper than any cut or slash. He’d felt the bleeding stain of it after Kjotve’s death — the quest for honour that had given his life direction ended. If it hadn’t been for Sigurd and this journey to England, he might still be caught in that stillness, becalmed. If Sigurd hadn’t returned when he had.

“How did you know about my shoulder?” Leofrith asked, dragging his gaze from Ceolbert who was in animated conversation with Randvi.

They were sitting together by the fire, at the corner of a long table at the far end of the great hall. Leofrith’s awkwardness, his sense of being out of place, was not wholly unwarranted. The aetheling had been welcomed with enthusiasm, the palpable symbol of a great victory and alliance. But Burgred’s war-thegn was another thing entirely and Eivor wondered if it would have been easier to bring him back as a captive.

“Ivarr bragged about it. Coming from him it is almost a compliment,” he smiled, ladling more stew into his guest’s bowl, “And I found your journal. I cannot promise to be as gentle as the sisters, but I think I can promise it will not take three hours.”

There was no answering smile from Leofrith, only a searching look and the flicker of firelight and shadow thrown onto his face.

Later they were back in Eivor’s room, the heavy drapes at its door drawn to shut out the world. This time Leofrith pulled off the borrowed tunic himself while Eivor readied needle and thread, curing the former with candle flame, and it was only with the pain of the first suture that Eivor felt the thegn breathe deep and relax for the first time. But even Leofrith winced when Eivor tugged on the thread.

“Why was it so important for me to burn that scroll?” Eivor asked to focus his mind elsewhere, “Who are these Zealots?”

“Mercenaries,” Leofrith replied, clinging to the conversation in desperate relief, “King Ælle recruited them in his time and granted Burgred the use of them. I cannot say how many there are — maybe a dozen or a score of them — but they can be found in every shire and they are relentless.”

He paused and turned his head slightly.

“You’re sure you destroyed the scroll? Because—.”

“I’m sure,” Eivor soothed, “It is in the past.”

Leofrith was a giant of a man. He wore no furs, no loose clothes, nothing that added bulk to his frame, yet even so Eivor found himself wondering again at the breadth of the powerful shoulders, the patent strength packed into the curved muscles that defined the body that seemed to fill the room not just with its physical bulk but also the crimson-heat of all it radiated. Ivarr’s ugly wound would have killed a lesser man but Leofrith had borne it and borne the pain of its stitches ripping open without showing any sign of it when he’d met Eivor on the battlefield. Plenty of old wounds, puckered and seared pale into the dark flesh, and as Eivor’s gaze raked over the fire-lit skin, he could still trace in blood every swipe and every jab he had landed.

Another hour of concentration then Eivor found he had closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the nape of Leofrith’s neck.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Just minutes,” the Saxon said in a release of pent-up breath before continuing in a voice full of regret as Eivor took up his work again, “You are tired.”

“It has been a tiring few days,” Eivor dismissed lightly, “You know what it is like to fight with Ivarr Ragnarsson, perhaps you can also imagine the effort it takes to _not_ fight with him.”

The thegn seemed to mull this over but didn’t comment.

“You should be resting,” he finally said gruffly.

“We both should be,” Eivor agreed, tying off the thread.

He cut the excess with his teeth and spread a herbal salve over the sutures as lightly as he could.

“You are safe here, you have my word. If you let it, this time the wound will heal.”

A slight nod.

“Thank you, Eivor.”

“Randvi has prepared quarters for young Ceolbert,” Eivor said, setting the medical supplies down on a nearby table then coming back to turn down the blankets and furs that littered his bed, “but it would be best if you to slept here with me until the people here are used to you and you are used to them.”

Leofrith’s gaze snapped up to meet Eivor’s in surprise and it was a measure of his weariness that his instinctive refusal went unspoken, outpaced by his reasoning.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he said quickly, his eyes flickering to the sleeping wolf curled up there, his aching muscles protesting at the memory of many cold nights spent in tents or on castle floors.

“There is no need,” Eivor said, laying down and turning onto his side, “I trust you and I need you to recover as quickly as possible.”


	2. Drengr & Thegn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at Ravensthorpe... 
> 
> Leofrith's PoV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating has been kicked up to Explicit (just a heads up for people who - you know - might be bothered by it). For those wondering what happened to slow burn — in my defence, it's still emotional slow burn. 
> 
> Also, if anyone remembers anything about a blacksmith’s note regarding Leofrith’s axe please, please for the sake of my sanity say so in comments because I cannot find it anywhere and I’m starting to think I imagined it. 
> 
> Apologies to everyone whose Eivor is not dressed, brushed and inked *exactly* like mine :D

**DRENGR & THEGN**

_“We Norse have a name for men and women with courage like yours._

Drengr _. I name you one now.”_

_— Eivor, if you choose to kill Leofrith_

Sitting on the bench at the end of the bed, facing the doorway, Leofrith half-turned his head when he heard his sleeping companion shift, not quite able to bring himself to look but not quite able not to.

Eivor did not move again and so eventually Leofrith turned away.

He’d woken after just a handful of hours, having sworn to himself that he’d watch through the night, and seeing Eivor’s sleeping form by the light of the last of the guttering candles had wondered if perhaps he really had died in that duel and this was merely some form of afterlife.

Nothing in his life as a soldier nor anything he’d seen of the savage Danes, none of the brutal events that had led to this moment, had prepared him for waking in a clean room, between clean sheets, soothed by the faint and familiar scent of woodsmoke, cocooned in the softness of furs and Eivor’s peaceful breathing.

The startling luxury of it had soon had him on his feet and dressing but then he’d hovered, not daring to leave but not quite daring to stay, before finally settling onto the bench.

He and the wolf he’d half-woken had stared at each other until the wolf had yawned at him and curled back up to sleep.

And there he still was, elbows resting heavily on his knees, wondering at the turn his life had taken.

The light touch of a foot in the small of his back jolted him out of his thoughts and this time he did look and found Eivor watching him with those unfathomable eyes.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Then you should have made less noise,” Eivor teased, turning onto his other side, “It’s still early. Come back to bed.”

And because he could think of no reason not to, Leofrith obeyed, laying down on his back, stiff as a log. Left to himself, however, his mind soon turned back to its tortured thoughts and he nearly jumped when Eivor stretched out an arm to rest a hand on his chest.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I did, aye,” Leofrith admitted, “You?”

“I did. I haven’t felt this warm since we landed here,” Eivor smiled then murmured, “We did a good thing in Ledecestrescire. I believe Ceolwulf will make a better king than Burgred did. And Ceolbert an even greater one.”

The war had never been about that but hearing it phrased in those terms, Leofrith found he could only agree and wearily recognise that he would have to leave the past behind him if he was to move forward. His anger at Burgred remained but it no longer raged, the heat of it seemingly siphoned off by the long, cool fingers splayed over his heart.

“Come, you must be hungry,” Eivor finally said when the sounds from outside their room became more insistent, “And I must see to those wounds.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” Leofrith protested, “They will heal well enough on their own.”

“We cannot take any risks, you are a valuable prize of war,” Eivor replied with a smile in his voice that proved only fleeting, “Ceolbert believed I would kill you. He could not stand to lose you again.”

They ate in companionable silence in the longhouse where people greeted Eivor with pleasure but seemed to pay them no particular attention otherwise.

When Eivor collected the medical supplies and went out to the pond, Leofrith trailed him as he’d done ever since he’d arrived. He watched Eivor wash his face and his beard and splash water onto his shoulders and neck, and did the same. It was clear that Eivor was fastidious and wanted him clean and Leofrith had no particular objection — the cold water was bracing and it felt good to be clean.

After which Eivor looked over the previous evening’s handwork, gentle fingers probing around the stitches.

“Perhaps I should have waited to do this in daylight,” he finally remarked with a rueful smile, “This is not my best work. It will leave a scar.”

Leofrith couldn’t help a short laugh of startled mirth at that and saw Eivor’s smile widen.

And so it was there, sitting on the grass, in the sunlight and to the sound of water on rocks, that Eivor set about cleaning and stitching up the less urgent wounds he didn’t like the look of.

On the way back to the longhouse they stopped by the stables to check on their horses and then, having dressed, Leofrith ventured forth out of the longhouse and into the settlement with Ceolbert while Eivor consulted with Randvi.

Less than a day and it seemed like the young aetheling knew everyone by name already and he showed Leofrith around, repeating what Randvi had told him.

“There is no training yard here but Eivor says Hytham has training dummies we might use for practice and that when your shoulder is healed we could take up training with the greatsword again.”

“As you wish, my Lord.”

“I am still Ceolbert, Leofirth.”

“You were only a son of a king’s thegn then. Now you are an aetheling and the lord I serve.”

“I should still prefer to be Ceolbert to you,” the young Saxon said at length, “At least when we are alone.”

Leofrith gave a nod of acquiescence.

“You’ve come to know them well, these Danes, in the time you’ve spent with them.”

“The Ragnarssons are Danes but the Raven clan are Norsemen.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Eivor says the Norsemen are less gentle than the Danes but I have seen no evidence of that. Perhaps the differences are too subtle for us, in the way that East and West Mercians might seem the same to them.”

No doubt there was truth to that and no doubt there were more similarities between Mercians and Norse than all their language of war allowed for. Nothing here, in this quiet settlement where Saxon traders lived easily next door to Norse farmers, was like the Ragnarsson war camps that had followed Burgred’s forces all over the scire but Leofrith now realised that would have made as little sense as comparing a crofter to a skirmisher. And even among their warriors, you could not find two more dissimilar as Ivarr and Eivor were.

“You like him. Eivor.”

Ceolbert inclined his head.

“I have not known him long but in that time he saved my life twice. He advised and protected me, he encouraged me to make my own choices and be true to myself.”

Leofrith digested this information. The axis of his world had already tilted enough that he now felt he should have been by Ceolbert’s side then to fill that role, rather than leave it up to fate to send another to fill it. Or not.

He glanced down at the young man and felt a chilling horror at what might have been. He’d never intended to kill Ceolbert. But someone else might have. 

Preoccupied with other things, he had heard without listening the many things Sigurd had told them of Eivor in answer to Ceolbert’s flood of questions during their ride together, and now the information slowly trickled back to him.

He had not known that the Danes had trailed him to Ledecestre and not known what Ceolbert, then still the son of the legitimate king’s challenger, had risked there.

“I was sure he would kill you,” Ceolbert said, echoing Eivor’s earlier words, “But he’s a greater man than I thought, kinder and wiser. I should like to be more like him. Ah, there is Gunnar.”

Leofrith nodded at the blacksmith in acknowledgement but kept his distance.

He’d dressed simply in his sleeveless tunic, trousers and leather bracers, having left his armour with Eivor’s and his weapons with Eivor’s, but he could see that even shorn of the marks of a war-thegn, many seemed to find him threatening and he wanted to do nothing to heighten that feeling.

When they reached the barracks, Ceolbert disappeared to greet old acquaintances and Leofrith realised that this was where he would otherwise have slept. Familiar faces nodded at him in recognition — of the people in the settlement, Eivor’s raiders knew him best and for the most part they did not bother to hide their wariness. Eivor’s trust in him had bought him a chance but they were watching him and they would be as quick to tear him to pieces as Eivor’s wolf no doubt would be if he ever threatened their leader.

Dag turned and spat. Birna smiled and looked him up and down then nodded, as if to signify that she, like others, fully understood why Eivor had taken him for his Saxon whore.

Maybe this was normal for them or made some kind of sense in a culture that to Leofrith’s mind glorified reckless bravado. Because, truly, few things could be more reckless than taking a defeated enemy warlord to one’s bed. As it was, Eivor kept a wolf there and Sigurd had told them how his brother had come by his playful-sounding nickname, Wolf-Kissed.

But just then Eivor appeared at the top of the path, coming towards him, bright as a shaft of sunlight, lithe and pale in a simple tunic, and Leofrith owned to himself that the charge of reckless bravado was difficult to lay at his feet.

“We were admiring your raiders,” Leofrith said to fill the silence between them, “Ceolbert says they are called _drengr_?”

“You are a _drengr_ too,” Eivor laughed softly, “Or do you think the words ‘brave warrior’ mean something else in our tongue? Do we stop being savage Danes when we leave your shores and you cease to call us so?”

“Norsemen,” Leofrith corrected before he could stop himself and saw Eivor’s smile widen.

Of course he was right. Ceolbert the aetheling was just an _odlingr_ to them and Eivor was as much a thegn to his jarl as Leofrith had been to his king.

Eivor had just finished applying salve to their wounds that evening when Chewy’s short barks heralded a messenger and Eivor was soon skimming a long letter.

“From Ceolwulf, to thank us for our help and for taking care of Ceolbert,” he remarked casually as if he were used to receiving personal missives from kings.

And perhaps he was too, since he, like Sigurd, was the son of a king and now brother to the ruling jarl. Leofrith knew now that giving Eivor a room of his own in the longhouse was a sign of great favour and could guess what it meant for him to share it.

Eivor handed the letter to Leofrith in a gesture that was equal parts politeness and confidence and when Leofrith handed it back, Eivor opened his letter box, preparing to put it away.

“Aren’t you worried I might read them?”

“I believe you are capable of many things, Leofrith, but I do not believe you could bring yourself to do that. Here,” Eivor said, turning to him with a few papers in his hands, “These are yours.”

Leofrith recognised his journal and the letter he’d written but hadn’t had time to send to his sister before the attack on Tamwoth.

“And this. I no longer have use for it.”

A letter written in a hand Leofrith knew well and as he read the vile words he heard Burgred’s voice in them.

Leofrith closed his eyes a moment, crushing the bit of parchment in his fist. He had taken Eivor’s words on trust but now he no longer had to. He opened his eyes and looked straight into Eivor’s.

“Now burn it,” Eivor advised quietly.

It was with a lighter heart that Leofrith woke early the following morning and despite a mild reproof from Eivor he dressed to go for a walk about the settlement while it was quiet. It was then that he discovered that Eivor’s fastidiousness was not unique since many of his fellow Norsemen were starting their day with a quick wash in one of the many streams around the settlement.

“We’re hoping to finish the construction of our shipyard,” Eivor told him over breakfast, “Perhaps you could help, without straining your shoulder.”

Leofrith nodded.

The settlement was full of life and activity but much of it was still tents.

“There is still much to do.”

“We are low on the raw materials needed,” Eivor grinned, “And you won’t like how we go about getting them.”

Leofrith kept away from the tools and contented himself with helping with the heavy lifting while Ceolbert plied Eivor, Randvi and others with questions about their methods of construction and architecture, delving into how the weather had dictated specific points of design.

Intelligent and knowledgeable. His genuine interest and curiosity meant he remembered what he was told and one could see from the questions and connections he made, how intensely his mind bent to understanding.

As he stood back with the others to admire the finished work, Leofrith felt Eivor’s cool fingertips at his shoulder.

“It’s healing,” he said and Eivor nodded.

He listened in on Randvi’s lesson to Ceolbert while Eivor went out on an errand for Reda and the shadow of the great tree had moved a long way along the longhouse by the time he returned.

“Come. Let’s eat and then we’ll wash while the water is warmest.”

Nobody else used the pool by the waterfall. By some unspoken agreement it was reserved for Eivor. There were plenty of streams around the settlement and most of its residents bathed and drew their water from them. Even Valka, whose hut sat on its very banks, barely touched its waters and Rowan watered the horses further downstream.

The light of the setting sun lit Eivor up in gold and Leofrith, already divested of his few garments, sat on the bank to watch him undress, light glinting off his metal cuffs and rings and buckles as he moved to remove his fur cape, his armour, all the bits of leather that made up his complicated garb — the belt that held the knife sheath and axe, the bracers and greaves, the quiver and the harness that usually held the axe Leofrith had expected to be felled by — and all of his clothes, the now filthy outer layers and those beneath them until he stood just in the inner ones, slim and simple. And even when those came off, he still wore on his skin the mark of his culture in ink.

“Do you think it would help if I dressed more like you?” Leofrith asked, glancing over his shoulder at the settlement, “Like them?”

Eivor paused in freeing the rings from his hair to look him over, plainly trying to imagine him in braids and gold bracelets.

“I think you look best as you are. Wearing only leather and sunlight on your skin.”

His gaze lingered a moment longer before he went back to shaking out his hair.

Leofrith knew he should feel more wary of Eivor’s silver tongue and honeyed words, he would have with any other man. But Eivor always said his words so simply, as if they were only the clearest expression of his thoughts. And maybe they were, he was known as a poet among his people.

This time Leofrith too stood under the cascading water, off to one side where it crashed down less fiercely on wounds still raw and that threatened to reopen, before following Eivor into the cave again.

This time Eivor had brought a bar of dark soap and treated himself to a thorough clean, meticulously washing all his long limbs and the long hair that glowed like moonlight in the dim cave.

When he’d finished and he neared to wash Leofrith’s back, Leofrith didn’t stop him — even though he had just washed himself and Eivor knew it — because every time they came here the water seemed to wash away a little more of the past he was trying to forget.

That and because Eivor obviously enjoyed doing it and Leofrith still wasn’t completely sure he hadn’t been brought to serve at his pleasure.

From the cold and dark of the pool they went to the candle-lit warmth and furs of the bedroom where Eivor applied salve to his own wounds before tending to Leofrith’s.

“Was I right to spare you?” Eivor asked once he’d finished, his voice barely more than a breath over Leofrith’s skin.

Leofrith looked at him over his shoulder. He’d never heard Eivor sound uncertain before.

“Odin came to me and whispered that I should give you the honourable death you wanted,” came the answer to his unspoken question, “But I could see no honour in it. It was not the death I would have wanted for myself so I could not give it to you, even though Odin thought I should let you go to your god in glory, that there could not be honour for you if you lived as an oath-breaker, that it would be better for you if you did not know. Was he right?”

Leofrith hung his head and drew in a deep breath. Even a day ago he might have given a different answer. He would have been happy to die in defence of something — _anything_ — but not at the whim of a king who had given away his crown to save his own life, the instrument of his impotent revenge. And with every new moment spent with Ceolbert he could feel their fates wound ever tighter like the yarns of a rope, in a way that made him see his duty to Burgred, once so important to him, for what it was — a chain around his neck, heavy and solid but ultimately brittle, that had finally shattered.

Out in the longhouse, Bragi had led some of the raiders into a song and the low, rhythmic, plaintive chant of it echoed the weight in Leofrith’s chest.

Eyes closed, he raised his head and let out a slow breath.

“No. You were right.”

No answer from Eivor and Leofrith kept still, breathless and waiting, terrified of disturbing whatever hung in the still air between them. Then he felt the press of Eivor’s cool forehead against the nape of his neck and the brush of his beard over his skin and when he felt the gentle press of cool lips between his shoulder blades he let out a long shuddering breath, as though he’d waited for Eivor for two lifetimes and not two days.

Eivor’s arms slipped over his shoulders, one going around his neck, the other trailing over his chest, and Leofrith took the hand that had come to rest over his heart again and pressed his lips to it where the two inked axes crossed.

Once he had Eivor braced and ready before him, a chill of fear at hurting the younger man nearly put out the heat of Leofrith’s want but when he felt his shock of relief at breaching him echoed in the hard shudder that shook Eivor’s body his need doubled. It multiplied again at the sight of the ripple of muscle and sinewy beneath the tattoos on Eivor’s skin and how starkly his own hands stood out against the pale flesh. He soon discovered how well the jut of his hip bones fit against the palms of his hand, that Eivor liked a firm grip and that in this as in everything else he was quiet.

Even after they were both spent, the strength of his want was such that though he knew his weight on Eivor must be crushing, it was a long while before he could bring himself to move off him.

“How did you know me?” Eivor asked, flattening a hand out over Leofrith’s chest, “When we met on the Isle of Waifs you knew my name.”

“Ceolbert spoke of you.”

A long finger traced the pale scar of an old wound over his right pectoral.

“You never meant to kill him. Or even take him.”

“No. I knew someone would come,” Leofrith said heavily then looked into Eivor’s eyes, “Ceolbert said you would come for him. And you did.”

In the silence between them rose the shimmer of what might so easily have been.

“Valka would say that our lives are a tapestry woven before we are born,” Eivor murmured, “We may change the lay of a few threads along the edges, but not its fabric and not its pattern.”

“Do you believe that?”

He saw the pale brow crease briefly.

“I don’t know.”

Leofrith leant over to press another hard, long kiss into the crook of Eivor’s neck but then a bolt of concern ran through him.

“Did I hurt you?”

“I am waiting for you to recover,” Eivor smiled, rolling his shoulders before laying his head back down on his crossed arms.

“Soon,” Leofrith promised with a choked word.

And when he did recover it was draped over him that he took Eivor again, arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders and his face buried against his neck, on the left side where the smell of him was strongest, rolling his hips hard and deep, soaking up Eivor’s gasps of pleasure and the grip of the slender fingers on his arm, and when he finally came it was with the taste of Eivor’s sweat on his tongue and Eivor’s name on his lips.

Afterwards he lay still, a hand on Eivor’s hip, the swell of bone nestled in the palm of it, and let him look his fill. He’d discovered he didn’t care if this son of a king saw him as nothing more than a prize bull. Eivor could have his pick of bed partners and Leofrith intended to make the most of having been chosen, even if it was just for one night.

It was not just for one night, he discovered when he woke up the next morning with Eivor safely ensconced in his arms, curved up along him, his blond hair tickling his nose. He moved very slightly to brush his lips along the shell of an exposed ear, breathing in the sunshine scent the calendula salve had left on the pale skin.

“You must do better than that if you intend to wake me this early every morning,” came Eivor’s muffled voice.

And so, after a little preparation, Leofrith slipped a hard thigh between Eivor’s pale ones and did better.

By now he knew that Eivor preferred a steady rhythm and was slow to peak and was glad that his stamina and discipline allowed him to accommodate him. For himself, he was discovering a subtle pleasure in holding back to wait for Eivor. It tested his ardour and carried off the excess of it, leaving him cooler and calmer in the aftermath.

“Ceolbert says you agreed to take him to Grantebridge,” he remarked when Eivor joined him down at the dock holding two flagons of mead late that afternoon.

“I did. He is curious about it and it is not far by ship. Our clan is allied with the jarl there — Birna’s former clan — and it would be useful for him to meet her. Soma jarlskona will like him.”

Leofrith nodded.

“You like him.”

“More than I ever expected to,” Eivor confessed, seating himself beside the Saxon and handing him a flagon, “He is thoughtful and wise beyond his years. Some might say he is too gentle to be a king but there is great strength in his kindness. I think he will make a fine king.”

He paused a moment.

“But he will never be a warrior king. He will need a good war-thegn to advise him.”

He turned to Leofrith and met the dark gaze.

“I have just received the news, you are still a thegn. Ceolwulf has decreed you are to keep your lands and titles. He has accepted your pledge of allegiance made through Ceolbert. If things go as we hope, you will never have to pledge yourself to any other man.”

It shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did but Leofrith was no mercenary, not one to wander from king to king as suited his interests, and it did matter. It was comforting to think he would die in Ceolbert’s service as he’d once been prepared to die in Burgred’s.

He looked into Eivor’s eyes, his chest tightly banded by all he felt and couldn’t voice.

“You have done this.”

“It is Ceolbert you should thank. His father trusts his judgement and he thinks highly of you.”

He raised his flagon to Leofrith.

“Skål.”

It was with that same toast that Eivor tried to curb Dag’s impudence the next evening.

Dag’s every sign of disrespect made Leofrith’s hackles rise but he said and did nothing, aware it was not his place and that Eivor was perfectly capable of handling himself and his subordinate.

When news of the attack rang throughout the longhouse, Leofrith saw that Eivor’s gaze too had gone to Ceolbert before meeting his.

“Guard the longhouse, he’ll be safe here,” Eivor instructed when they met in his room to retrieve their weapons.

From his vantage point, Leofrith kept an eye on what was happening below and especially on Eivor who was fighting beneath the great tree and dispatched any who made it past the lines up to the longhouse.

He watched from a discreet distance what unfolded when Dag brought his captive raider before the community’s two leaders and felt anger seep into his blood again at Dag’s flagrant disobedience.

“Leofrith, with us,” Eivor said after he and Randvi had dismissed Dag.

“You’re sure?” Leofrith asked, glancing at Randvi.

“We are not so foolish as to have a famous war-thegn at hand and not seek his advice,” Eivor said and Randvi nodded her agreement.

She too was still upset at Dag’s behaviour, which had closed one avenue of action to them.

“There is not much choice now,” Eivor shrugged after a brief discussion, “If there is no other way to gain more information then I will go myself.”

“Halfdan Ragnarsson has laid claim to East Anglia,” Leofrith remarked slowly, “Will he not mind you intervening?”

“We have been attacked, we have the right to defend ourselves and we have to protect Ceolbert. Besides, I can’t imagine Halfdan is happy with the situation there, if what our reports say of it are accurate,” Eivor said, glancing at Randvi who nodded, “I will see what I can do. Ubba will smooth things over if there’s need.”

Eivor looked around the table then nodded.

“It is decided then. I will leave tomorrow.”

He planted his dagger in the map and Leofrith followed him to their room.

“Tell me what you wouldn’t say in front of Randvi,” Eivor bade him once they were alone.

“I know not how you got past my men at Templebrough to take Lady Aethelswith from it. I only know that you did,” Leofrith began, “There is a fort in East Anglia, at Dunwic, that is near impregnable. It sits hundreds of feet up on vertical cliffs in shallow water, the only way to it is over a bridge to the mainland. If I were this Rued, it is in that fort that I would make my den. It cannot be taken by sea, a dozen able men can hold it but it would take an army to storm it,” he paused, “You will not have an army. You may be able to get in but if you are trapped there… they will kill you.”

Eivor nodded and reached up to push back the shoulder edge of Leofrith’s tunic.

Leofrith knew he’d pulled a couple of stitches and noted that Eivor did not reproach him but simply retrieved the needle and thread to repair the damage.

“You fought well,” Eivor remarked, “But bring Gunnar your sword, he’ll give it back its edge.”

“It was sharper once,” Leofrith owned ruefully, “We both were. Being here is making me soft.”

“Are you saying I’ve dulled your blade? Because that has not been my impression.”

Leofrith laughed and kissed the back of the hand Eivor slipped over his shoulder. Soon both the pale arms were wrapped around his neck, loosely crossed at his collarbones and the skin of his neck tingled at the brush of Eivor’s beard and his lips against it.

“I might get too used to having my conscience and my duty go hand in hand as they do now,” he tried to explain, “I worry I will lose the strength to do the hard thing when I have to.”

“You will always find the strength to do the right thing, Leofrith,” Eivor murmured.

Letting Eivor go to East Anglia while he stayed at Ravensthorpe with Ceolbert was the right thing to do but Leofrith found it harder than he’d imagined when the time for goodbyes came the following morning.

“Dag—.”

“I need him,” Eivor shook his head, “He leads the raiders, which frees me from the daily running of the crew so that I am free to deal with other things,” Eivor explained then continued when he saw Leofrith was unconvinced, “Even if he is not loyal to me he is loyal to Sigurd and will not question a direct order. You understand this.”

Leofrith did understand this and recognised it. Though their chains of command did not function like those he was used to, he could see that they did exist.

But he still did not like it.

“Stay in my room and guard my letters while Chewy is away,” Eivor smiled, reaching up to thread his fingers into Leofrith’s hair a moment, “I will return as soon as this is resolved.”

Leofrith nodded and followed him out of their room, itching to touch the blond but conscious of Randvi and others watching them.

“May the wind be at your back always, Eivor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't already, subscribe for chapter updates!


	3. Stamped by his Creator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> East Anglia and the return to Ravensthorpe. 
> 
> Eivor's PoV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so the emotional slow burn is mostly cinders but look! First kiss! 
> 
> Also, just finished the Cent arc and I’m howling.
> 
> Thanks for all the lovely comments and kudos and special thanks to Thalliumfire and Goafer for the axe pointers — still haven't found the note I thought I read but at least now I know I'm not crazy!

**STAMPED BY HIS CREATOR**

_“Only Leofrith remains.”_

_— Eivor to Lady Æthelswith_

On the way to East Anglia they stopped in Grantebridge, where Eivor had intended to bring Ceolbert and spoke of the young _odlingr_ to Soma, whose dark hair reminded him of Leofrith’s.

Both Finnr and Oswald he found underwhelming and as he fought off Rued’s men while Oswald hid behind an empty oat barrel Eivor thought to himself that Ceolbert, at least, would have had to have been pressed to stay out of harm’s way.

Later he watched East Anglia’s best hope for peace be insulted under his own roof by those who were to be his allies and remembered Ceolbert acknowledging him with an elegant inclination of his head when they’d first met and how easily he’d conversed with them, with strangers from a culture foreign to him, on their ride from Repton to Tamworth. Ceolbert had a king’s nobility of bearing and spirit bred into him but Eivor hoped he would also know to be firm with those who opposed or disrespected him.

The next morning he watched the future king pitching hay and wondered, and when Rued’s spy accused the lot of them of being soft as butter he wondered again.

Eivor knocked the sword from Oswald’s hand and sent him tumbling to the ground.

There was some grit there, he owned, but would it be enough? Would it be enough for Ceolbert?

Ceolbert had reserves of strength inside him. He would have to learn to draw on them and use them well but then he would have the time to do so, his father had only just been made king. Oswald did not have that luxury. He would have to learn quickly, even if it meant Eivor had to break his skin and his bones.

There had been no flyting lessons for Ceolbert but then flyting would not suit him. His power lay not in cutting people down but in always expecting that the best in them would prevail. Eivor himself had at times been short with Ceolbert in their first exchanges, had tried to reprimand him when he was reckless, but it never took and his tone had often turned conciliatory.

And though there would be sword training for Ceolbert too, Eivor had seen with his own eyes that even at Repton Leofrith had put fewer marks on Ceolbert than Eivor was now putting on Oswald.

Never a real blow, hardly a harsh word.

“Stay down, Oswald.”

But the would-be king wiped the blood from his mouth, scrabbled for the lost sword and swayed to his feet once again.

As he prepared to infiltrate Dunwic, Eivor saw Oswald’s determined expression and wondered if they’d done enough or if Oswald would always be too soft to be a king, even a king of East Anglia. It would take a hundred Oswalds to rule Mercia.

He watched Oswald and Rued tumble off the edge together but before the horror of it even hit him he heard Leofrith’s voice in his ear and fled.

Oswald’s courage belatedly earned him the respect of his no-longer-brothers-to-be and that of Halfdan’s steward, but Eivor’s silent grief at this loss he found echoed only in some of Valdis’ looks and words. And for this he felt guilt because he knew the heart of his grief was not for Oswald but for what he saw of Ceolbert in him, just as the heart of his joy at later finding him still alive was.

Dressed in its best for the wedding, Elmenham was a portrait of England at its most beautiful and welcoming.

“Go, enjoy the feast,” Oswald bade him, standing under a flower-wreathed arbour with Valdis.

So Eivor went and enjoyed but was soon lost in deep thought and sightless contemplation of a roast pig.

He agreed with Halfdan’s approach. After all it was how the Danes and the Norse forged alliances, it was how Sigurd had come to marry Randvi. And one day, if all went well, Oswald and Valdis’ son would unite Danes and Saxons in one being and one crown.

Perhaps the same fate lay in store for Ceolbert. Certainly it was what they should be working towards — Danes and Norse, Ragnarssons and Ravens — to cement their alliance and their hold on Mercia.

But Eivor thought of Randvi and Sigurd and found himself saddened by the thought that Ceolbert too might be forced into a political marriage of convenience with a wife he could not love.

When it came, unexpected as it was, he agreed to Broder’s proposition because he knew he’d given him something to prove in calling him flaccid, because with Oswald now safely crowned and wed the tension of the last few days had collapsed and left him feeling empty and yearning as he often did after battle, and because it would not hurt to stiffen Broder’s commitment to the alliance.

Oswald was just a sheep farmer, called to lead a greater flock. He would never be a warrior. His act of courage had won him the love and respect of his people but that would not be enough to keep the peace. For that he would need his Dane allies to lead the fight should one ever come to them.

Broder was drunk enough that it was spectacular for him but too drunk to make it more than pleasant for Eivor and he knew not if that was because they were drunk or because the body pressed against his was not Leofrith’s crushing weight, the smell not Leofrith’s, and the resolution not the release that only Leofrith seemed able to give him.

Ceolbert too would need advice in all matters martial and Eivor knew that there at least he would be served well, for Leofrith was the best that could be had. Leofrith was no raider and might not have thought of throwing a fire ship at the sea gate, but he would have found some way to breach the walls of Burgh castle, of this Eivor had no doubt.

Afterwards he smiled at Broder and wondered if the alliance here would hold or if he would have to return in a month to set things straight again. He looked at Broder’s face and saw in its place Leofrith’s – broader, rock-hewn and hard-planed, harsh were it not for the expressive brows and deep-set eyes.

Saxons believed themselves created by their God and if that was the case then He had put without the stamp of everything Leofrith was within — strong, solid and dependable.

And in a moment Eivor was tired of East Anglia, tired of all its pettiness and fickleness and all he wanted was to be back in Ravensthorpe again with his clan, Ceolbert, and Leofrith.

This impatience stayed with him as he listened to Oswald’s speech and when Rued swaggered onto the scene it was this same impatience and the need to see an end that put steel into Eivor’s voice when he insisted on being Oswald’s champion.

Even Rued’s death couldn’t quiet it and Eivor carried it with him on the ship until the bend in the river that brought Ravensthorpe into sight.

The sound of his horn brought half the settlement to the docks and in among them all he could easily make out Leofrith’s tall figure and Ceolbert’s blond head near it.

He disembarked under the heavy gaze of half-closed eyes that only seemed to concentrate the intensity they wanted to hide and whose heat now pooled low in Eivor’s belly at the thought that the mere sight of him was enough to turn Leofrith’s blood to fire.

“A new king and a new ally in East Anglia,” Eivor told Ceolbert with a smile, “And some new friends. That is Bjorn and this is Finnr — Halfdan’s steward in East Anglia.”

As Ceolbert went off to chat with the newcomers, Eivor and Leofrith fell into step with each other, heading towards the longhouse.

“Bjorn is a berserker. You are never to fight him,” Eivor warned quietly, “And if he ever offers you a drink that smells off, refuse it.”

And before surprise had even fully registered on Leofrith’s face, a bolt of white streaked over to Eivor and twined about his legs until he picked it up.

“Ah, and this is Nali. She took a liking to the ship and decided to join the crew.”

Leofrith stared at the cat then looked over to the large berserker by the barracks.

“Is this what you do? Collect strays and give them a home?”

Eivor smiled but said nothing and instead let his gaze linger on Leofrith’s mouth, causing the dark eyes to narrow again.

By the time he’d reported to Randvi, washed, and eaten, it was late and the hunger in Leofrith’s eyes as he sat on the bed and watched Eivor undress was almost a living thing.

Eivor finally came to stand between Leofrith’s long thighs and wound his fingers into the thick hair when the dark head came to rest against his chest. And there they stayed a moment, still and quietly breathing.

“I missed you,” Leofrith finally murmured, pressing a kiss onto the steeple point between Eivor’s ribs.

Eivor closed his eyes, his grip on Leofrith tightening, then he sank down onto his lap.

“And I missed you,” he sighed, the confession a breath against Leofrith’s mouth.

The dark brow creased in surprise, helpless and nearly pained.

“Did you?”

Eivor nodded and brushed his lips over Leofrith’s.

“I missed you so much.”

He felt Leofrith’s arms tighten around him and his strong fingers dig into his flesh as he slowly kissed first his top lip, then his bottom one, catching it gently between his teeth. He felt as well as heard the snarling-groan that vibrated deep in Leofrith’s chest when he flicked the tip of his tongue into Leofrith’s mouth before finally pressing his own to it.

He wrapped his arms around Leofrith’s head to kiss him again, hard, and pushed him down onto the bed, looking into his eyes as he straddled him to see if he accepted, his insides melting when he saw from Leofrith’s soft look that he did, wholly and unconditionally.

Pleasure and pain mingling as Leofrith’s strong fingers gripped bruised and macerated flesh, turned blue by hard knocks and falls and by the flat of Rued’s blade, and Eivor felt the same power locked away in the smooth, unyielding muscles beneath his splayed fingers as he braced against Leofrith’s taut stomach to lower himself onto him. A cool chill of relief flooded his entire body at the familiar sensation, warmed then heated to roiling-boiling, searing rapture at feeling the bounded, straining strength beneath him, caught between his thighs.

And yet… And yet even that was not enough and so Eivor leant over Leofirth for another kiss.

“Leofrith, I need more,” he pleaded and bit back a moan of gratified need when the band of Leofrith’s arms tightened around him and he rolled them over, pulling Eivor’s knees up and positioning himself to give Eivor the pounding he craved, driving and relentless until Eivor slipped away into the dark oblivion he’d been chasing.

Waking hazily, Eivor shifted his head to pillow it more comfortably on Leofrith’s chest then caught sight of a carved bit of wood lying on the floor.

“Is that… from the headboard?”

“Aye. Sorry.”

As Eivor pushed himself up to look at the headboard, the large hand caressing his back slid down to rest against the curve of his rump.

“That’s solid oak.”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Leofrith explained mildly.

A frown of puzzlement creased Eivor’s pale brow.

“I didn’t even hear it happen.”

“I expect your attention was elsewhere.”

At this, Eivor arched an eyebrow and looked down at Leofrith. The Saxon looked perfectly truthful, with his calm expression and half-closed eyes, but there had been a smug smirk in his voice.

He melted into a fond smile and treated Leofrith to a lazy, languorous kiss, before pulling away to look down at him, winding his fingers into the thick hair again.

“I’ve rarely seen hair this dark.”

“A legionary or two in the family tree,” Leofrith remarked offhandedly then smiled, “Maybe more, Mercia’s well South of Hadrian’s wall.”

“The blood of foreign invaders?” Eivor said in mock surprise, earning himself a small laugh from Leofrith, “Don’t tell Octavian, he might steal you from me.”

“Oh, he knows. When we were first met he told me my heritage lived on in my name. ‘Leo’ the latin for lion and the Saxon ‘frith’ for protector.”

“A lion…” Eivor murmured, a smile stealing across his face, “Eivor Lion-Kissed.”

“You haven’t been yet,” Leofrith remarked offhandedly and Eivor looked askance at him, “You kissed me.”

Eivor’s smile widened and once again Leofrith rolled him onto his back with ease. He felt the strong fingers weave into his hair as Leofrith cradled his head, the sword-calloused fingertips brushing over the vulnerable hollows behind his ears and at the nape of his neck.

He felt the same pent-up passion and controlled strength in the kiss Leofrith gave him, open-mouthed and deliberate, slow and devouring, full of the threat and the promise of more.

When Leofrith looked down at him, his lidded eyes still burned full of all he’d held back.

“When?”

Eivor’s gaze ran caressingly over the now achingly familiar face and he reached out to touch a healing nick along a cheekbone.

“The moment I saw you, I think. Maybe before. I had heard much about you.”

He’d heard Leofrith’s name spoken with wary respect by Ubba and with grudging respect by Ivarr, he’d seen it written next to death tallies in scout reports and heard the wind-rustle of it among their warriors, whispered in awe by those who had seen the famous war-thegn fight.

Leofrith’s name had been on his lips when he’d spoken to Lady Æthelswith and it had been in all of their minds when news came of the attack on Repton and suddenly the ghost of their encounter there was between them again.

“Ceolbert spoke your name and there you appeared like he’d invoked an avenging angel, haloed by the blade of an axe that had nearly killed me once already,” Leofrith murmured absently, seeming lost in the past, then met Eivor’s gaze, “I never had a surer moment in this whole god-forsaken war that I was on the wrong side of it.”

That wound would take time to heal, Eivor knew, but he ached at being unable to relieve even the pain of it.

“You can have the axe if you want it. It was made for you.”

Leofrith shook his head, brow creasing in pain and anger.

“No, it was the cost of my loyalty and Burgred’s price for it and I won’t have it. It’s yours, your prize for my surrender.”

Eivor was shaking the medallions he’d collected out of the belt pouch he kept them in when Leofrith walked in.

“Ceolbert asked for training,” the Saxon explained as he retrieved his sword and his eyes narrowed when he caught sight of the medallions.

“I encountered a Zealot on the way back from East Anglia,” Eivor told him then quickly continued to preempt the reproach he saw forming in Leofrith’s mind, “I caught him unawares, I was never in any danger. Leofrith, what do you know of them?” 

“Only what I told you. I was there when King Ælle first offered Burgred the use of them. Burgred admired Ælle’s vision and his power and would mention the Zealots as an example of both. He resorted to them to rid himself of individuals who were outside his reach, but not through me. Yours was the only name I ever gave them.”

“Because by then you were the only one left that he could trust,” Eivor hummed thoughtfully, “So you don’t know who leads them now? Whose pay they’re in?”

Leofrith shook his head.

“I thought they might have continued to work independently after Ælle’s death as an organised mercenary network. Why? Are they still after you?”

“No, but when I found Burgred I also found an unsent letter of his in which he tells their principal that he has made use of their services. It is there in the box,” Eivor paused, “Has Hytham ever told you why he’s here?”

Leofrith listened, still as a statue, as Eivor told him what he knew of the Order of Ancients and as the silence stretched on Eivor wondered if the Saxon thought him mad.

“You never saw anything?”

“Nothing so organised,” Leofrith said with a vague shake of the head, “But you know well Burgred is not a man of initiative. He was always under Ælle’s control, especially since that incident with Lerion. The use of the Zealots was a convenience for Burgred that must have suited Ælle too.”

“But even if he was not of the Order, do you think he might have known something of it from his dealings with Ælle?”

“If Ælle was of this Order then some of the representatives he sent in his dealings with Burgred might have been too,” Leofrith conceded, “Whether he knew it or not.”

They fell into silence and Eivor waited, sensing the Saxon might have more to say.

“Those set as targets for the Zealots were always pagans — Danes — or those seen to be their allies,” Leofrith finally said slowly, “Ælle's aim was to protect England and Christendom from Ragnar Lothbrok’s invasions. With Ælle gone, Mercia, East Anglia and most of the south allied with the Danes, that role has fallen to Wessex.”

_Ælfred._

Eivor pondered the information as he made his way over to Hytham and handed him the medallions.

“Have you people you trust in Rome?”

“We do. Is there something you need there?”

“The former King Burgred of Mercia is exiled there. He had dealings with the Zealots we are hunting, it may be worth questioning him to see if he knows something of their masters.”

“I see no difficulty in this,” Hytham agreed, “This Burgred, is it necessary that he be kept alive?”

Eivor thought of Leofrith, whose life Burgred had forfeited, and Ceolbert, whose throne the old king might still seek to reclaim.

“No.”

Hytham bowed slightly.

“It will be done.”

It was not revenge, Eivor told himself as he followed the sounds of voices and clashing swords to the makeshift training yard. Revenge would have been the cold steel of Leofrith’s blade between Burgred’s ribs or feeling the slow ebb of life with the hot iron of Leofrith’s hands around his throat. This was just business of the same kind Reda sometimes bought of him.

Pausing to lean against a fence post, Eivor relaxed into a smile as he watched Leofrith move, wearing only trousers and the sweat on his back. He admired the high guard that surely few men could hold for so long with such a heavy blade and the catastrophic speed with which he could bring it down and swing it.

He had not survived Leofrith through luck or skill and it was neither skill nor luck that now kept Ceolbert from harm.

Leofrith had grown stronger in his absence, displaying the powers of recovery Ivarr had taunted him for in Tamworth. He stood straight and held his head high. His shoulder had healed enough to allow him great freedom of movement and Eivor knew he would soon need something more challenging than Ceolbert and straw dummies to test himself against, perhaps already did.

“Come, Ceolbert, give me your sword.”

The aetheling was brave but he had neither Leofrith’s strength nor Eivor’s nimbleness. They would have to teach him to guard and guard well, to have the patience to wait for a clear opening or a rescue.

“What is Oswald like?” Ceolbert asked as they sat in the sunlight, drinking deep of fresh-drawn spring water and wiping their brows, “Will he make a good king?”

“I think he will,” Eivor said and found he nearly meant it, “He will do his best to be, that is all we can ask of him.”

Now that he had a little distance, he wondered if he’d been too harsh in his judgment of Finnr and Oswald. Oswald had never wanted the crown, had not been bred to leadership the way Ceolbert was. And how many inadequate men had poor Finnr tried to build up to kingship before drowning his disappointments in ale? Just a few days of these frustrations had worn Eivor’s patience thin.

He recounted East Anglia to them, explaining each of his courses of action so Ceolbert could hear all that he’d struggled to make Oswald understand about leadership, earning respect from his Dane allies and showing courage. He drew maps in the dirt with the end of a stick so that Leofrith might understand their assault on Burgh Castle. It would serve Leofrith to know how his Dane and Norse allies operated.

“We could take that trip to Grantebridge,” Eivor remarked to Leofrith as they watched Ceolbert walk off in the direction of the dock to practice the fishing techniques Eivor had taught him, “And on the way back you could raid with us,” he said, shaking his head to silence Leofrith’s instinctive protest, “Not a monastery, a bandit camp. Soma writes that Grantebridgescire is plagued with themand it would be useful for you to see how we do things.”

Leofrith was silent as he considered, perhaps thinking back to the many surprise attacks suffered by his military camps.

“You’re right about that but is it wise to bring Ceolbert on a raid?”

“We’ll take two ships to be safe and he can stay on one of them with some of our raiders throughout. If it is only bandits there will be no danger to him.”

But even as he spoke an old doubt resurfaced.

“I thought about what you said,” he told Leofrith as they made their way back to the longhouse, “Maybe I too have become soft. I worry we are too easy on Ceolbert.”

“Too easy on him?”

“Because we love him,” Eivor explained, “We want to spare him hardship but we would be doing him a disservice if we denied him things he should experience. He is to be king. Perhaps this is the hard thing we have to do.”

“Ceolbert is still young and there’s still much for him to learn,” Leofrith finally agreed, “But he’s no child to have his mind shaped by us beyond its true nature. Some experiences will be lessons to him but others can only bring him harm. Having to fight me didn’t change him. No good came of it.”

“I know,” Eivor agreed with a sigh, “Part of me is glad of it but part of me wonders if it should have. We both know that even those closest to us can betray us. It is a lesson that might serve him.”

“You were the one to take the sword from him earlier.”

“You were afraid of hurting him. You were afraid of hurting me,” Eivor said then smiled as they reached the bedroom, “And besides, I’ve always admired your swordplay.”

Standing this close to Leofrith, he was forced to tilt his head up to meet his gaze and even then couldn’t reach his mouth.

Leofrith watched him from behind lidded eyes, head held high and unrelenting even as Eivor rubbed his nose against the bristle of beard on his chin.

Only when Eivor pressed his body against his more insistently did he unbend enough to press his mouth to Eivor’s forehead like a hot brand, letting it linger there before moving down to the bridge of his nose to place another slow kiss there. Then he bent further, curving the smaller man to him to reach his mouth, his arms going around Eivor to lift him clean off the ground and pin him to the wall, deepening the kiss.

The same ravening hunger hit Eivor low in the stomach the next day when, raid completed, he turned to find Leofrith standing a short distance behind him, wiping the blood from his brow with his left forearm, the knife usually sheathed on his belt still clutched in his hand.

“You’re not hurt?” the thegn asked, trudging through swamp water to reach him, head bowed to look him over more closely.

Eivor shook his head and while nobody was looking quickly licked a stripe of blood from Leofrith’s mouth.

He tasted iron on his tongue again later that night as he watched Leofrith oil his greatsword, candlelight deepening the shadows between the hard muscles of his back and shoulders.

“I have a gift for you,” he announced, settling behind Leofrith on the bed, long legs stretched out alongside Leofrith’s.

Leofrith turned the smooth piece of ivory over in his hand.

“You made this?”

“I found it near a circle of oak off the coast of East Anglia and carved it during the journey back,” Eivor admitted, his face pressed against the nape of Leofrith’s neck.

“What does it say?”

“It’s a protective charm, ancient magic,” Eivor smiled, retrieving the token and looping the leather ties about Leofrith’s neck, then laughed, “Well, at least it will ensure other Norse and allied Danes will not touch you.”

“If you’re known in other places as you are known in Grantebridge, your name will be protection enough, Lion-Kissed.”

Eivor wrapped his arms tightly around Leofrith’s chest, smiled, but said nothing.

(Ignore the trout)


	4. The Lesson of the Cairn Stones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eivor goes to Lunden and Asgard. Leofrith probably starts to wonder if Eivor's losing his mind. 
> 
> Leofrith's PoV

**THE LESSON OF THE CAIRN STONES**

_“Is this how Ragnarok begins?”_

_— Havi_

“You just stack them?”

“You just stack them,” Eivor confirmed and began to demonstrate as Ceolbert watched on, attentive as if Eivor were giving him a lesson on high politics and not… whatever this was.

The three of them had ridden up to a ridge near Ragnarsson Lookout then settled on a ledge overlooking the confluence of the Brant and the Soar, with Ravensthorpe below them to the west and the ruins of Venonis to the east.

“My mother taught me this. She would take me out to the fjords so we would look out on nothing but ice and water and we would stack stones.”

Hardly a breath of breeze to ruffle Eivor’s hair, just the glint of sunlight off the gold and silver in it as the blond brushed off the dirt and dried grass from his selection of rocks.

“What is the aim?”

“Just to stack stones,” Eivor said simply, running one of the rocks against the flat of the ridge to find a level placement for it, “The why does not matter, only the how. You cannot do this in a hurry, when your heart is not in it or when your mind is elsewhere. You must choose to do it. You must clear your mind of all other things, of all the noise of life, to focus entirely on the task at hand.”

Eivor eyed the remaining rocks before finally reaching for one, gently hefting it in his hand a few times before setting it atop the first.

“You must weigh up each piece, look at the shape of it and see how it might fit with the others.”

He shifted the second rock very slightly, feeling for its centre of gravity.

“No matter how precisely you think you have judged a situation, you must always be ready to make adjustments, to move if others will not or cannot, to find a state of balance.”

The third of the rocks wobbled then tipped the whole structure over but Eivor just laughed and gathered them back up again.

“It teaches patience. Not everything comes together at the first attempt,” he explained as he began again, switching the second rock for the third, “A situation might look impossible, unsalvageable, but sometimes all it needs is a new approach, to be turned on its head.”

And here Eivor’s caressing gaze flickered to Leofrith.

“Pieces that at first look incompatible may draw strength from each other in unforeseen ways.”

Having placed the final rock, Eivor left his steadying hand on it a long while, obviously trying to gauge the structure’s soundness through it.

“It reminds us that there are different ways of achieving the same result, that a problem may have many solutions, and and that the outcome is shaped by the decisions that led to it. That we can only come to know the shape of things when we reach their end.”

He gradually moved his hand away from it and this time the cairn settled into its final form.

“And that until we reach that end we can only place one stone on top of the other, knowing only what we know.”

Eivor smiled at Colbert gently and nodded at a nearby pile of rocks.

“Try it.”

They were so similar, Leofrith thought to himself as he watched the two blond heads bent to each other.

Both were predisposed to see the best in people and there was plenty of good in each one of them for the other to respect and admire.

And love, Leofrith thought, remembering Eivor’s words.

Ceolwulf asking Sigurd to extend his clan’s hospitality to his son had merely been a king’s courtesy to an allied jarl. It was to Eivor that Ceolbert had been entrusted.

Eivor always let him read Ceolwulf’s letters to him and by now Leofrith had received one of his own. It was plain in them that the new-crowned king knew the bond that had been forged between his son and the Norse warrior within that short time and space in Mercia, somewhere between Repton and Tamworth and Ledecestre. 

Leofrith had served under Burgred all his adult life and he’d seen the son of the king’s thegn grow up from a child into the young man he’d grown to love for his goodness and greatness of spirit and his relentless striving to improve and prove himself when other youths of his rank were content to sit and wait to be handed their due.

Eivor was a fearsome warrior but it was not that strength that Ceolbert admired in him.

Eivor had accepted Leofrith’s surrender, he could have brought him back to Ravensthorpe a captive — a thrall — to serve Ceolbert as little better than a sellsword. Instead, he had freed him then recaptured him with words more securely than any chain or manacle could have done.

It was that restraint under pressure — the ability to resist settling for the first solution, the quick one, the easy one, in order to find a better one — that Ceolbert admired in Eivor, along with the clarity of mind, even in the fire and din of battle, to stop and look at all the scattered pieces and see how they could be made to fit together.

Leofrith smiled to himself as Ceolbert’s rocks tumbled to the ground and the two blonds laughed before gathering them up again.

The lesson of the cairn stones.

“I’m going to Lunden,” Eivor told Leofrith casually as he prepared for bed, “It would be a valuable alliance and it would create trade opportunities for the settlement.”

“Aye,” Leofrith agreed, pulling off his tunic, “But there will be more pressure on them once you’ve secured Oxenefordscire.”

“I had thought to wait,” Eivor acknowledged, “But with Grantebridgescire and East Anglia allied to Mercia, Lunden should have reason enough already.”

Leofrith tried to guess the question to the fleeting answer in the blue gaze that wouldn’t meet his.

“And?”

A breath of a pause as Eivor got into bed next to him, not pressed up against him but quite separate on his side of the bed.

“And Hytham says the Order operates there.”

“Why does the Order matter so much to you?”

Another pause.

“Kjotve, the man who killed my parents, was one of them.”

Leofrith stretched out an arm towards the blond and after the briefest hesitation Eivor moved to pillow his head on it, allowing himself to be drawn into the circle of Leofrith’s arms.

And Leofrith listened and pressed soft kisses against the blond head as the whole story poured out of Eivor, wondering how he could have been so wrong about him. He remembered, vaguely, snatches of what Sigurd had told them but it had seemed a faraway thing, a thing that had happened, yes, but that Eivor himself, so young at the time, might barely remember. What had stuck in his mind was that Eivor was brother to Sigurd, who was even more prince than Ceolbert was because he’d been born to a king.

But the raw pain of what he’d been through and what he’d lost saturated Eivor’s every quiet word and expression. Not just the shock of his parents’ end or his own near-death, but the heavy burden of the perceived dishonour he’d carried for seventeen long years — the entire span of Ceolbert’s life.

“But Kjotve is dead and your family honour regained. Why meddle with this Order?”

“Leofrith, if the Order is an enemy to Danes, they are an enemy not just to my clan but to Ceolwulf as well. They will seek to replace him with another — perhaps not Burgred or Ælfred himself, but _somebody_.”

A shiver of premonition ran down Leofrith’s spine as Eivor paused and the blond propped himself up to look into Leofrith’s eyes.

“What if they send the Zealots after Ceolbert?” Eivor asked gently and waited a moment for the question to sink in, “We must strike them before they strike us. And for that we must have more information about them.”

Eivor was right. Quite apart from the hefty weregild on the aetheling that made him an attractive proposition for a hostage, Ceolbert would always be Ceolwulf’s weak spot, the one his enemies would seek out, this Order foremost.

Leofrith understood this and accepted it.

But he still didn’t like it.

“You could go with him,” Ceolbert said to Leofrith the evening before Eivor’s planned departure as they sat on a bench, watching the stars, “I will be quite safe here.”

The impetus to do just that was so strong that Leofrith had to stop himself from physically moving, as if to leave that very moment.

But Eivor’s warning about the Zealots still rang in his ears.

“My place is with you. It is what Eivor himself always intended. You know this.”

Beyond what Ceolbert meant to Eivor personally, he also embodied the clan’s whole future. Their place in England would never be secure unless it was underwritten by a strong alliance with the local kings. Ceolwulf’s throne was still contested, so the Danes and the Norse might not know real stability until Ceolbert’s rule.

If Ceolbert ruled at all.

Burgred had not sent Leofrith to take Ceolbert hostage without reason. Without a dynastic heir, Ceolwulf’s reign would have brought with it the seeds of civil war in the battle for his succession and he would have been even easier to dethrone than Burgred.

Eivor had seen before anyone else that Ceolbert, son of the king, would be in even greater danger than Ceolbert, son of the would-be usurper. And he had turned Burgred’s blade against him.

Leofrith knew that whatever Eivor felt for him came second to his desire to keep Ceolbert safe — for his own sake and that of the Raven clan. That was why he had put Leofrith’s life in service to Ceolbert as he had put his own in service to Sigurd. Their paths might cross but they would never join.

“I do not like him going alone,” Ceolbert remarked as if the Raven clan’s raiders counted for nothing and only Leofrith could protect Eivor.

The raw need to protect Eivor still ran in Leofrith’s blood the next day when he followed Eivor down to the dock. His gaze followed Eivor around as he said his goodbyes, settled last minute decisions with Randvi, looked over his crew, then finally went to Ceolbert before coming to Leofrith himself.

Leofrith looked into the blue eyes, speechless and chest tight and burning with all the things he hadn’t found words for and the ravening, possessive despair he felt at thinking Eivor so vulnerable and so far from him.

“I’ll be back soon,” Eivor told him quietly, that small smile on his face.

Leofrith drew a deep breath and nodded.

“You have my axe, may it protect you always.”

Leofrith missed Eivor. He’d missed him in anticipation and now he missed him with the gasping urgency of a punctured lung. He missed the sight of him, the smell and touch of him, the taste of him. He missed the low harmonies of his quiet voice and the soothing things it spoke.

And yet, Eivor’s presence was everywhere in Ravensthorpe, starting with its name, which Randvi said he’d chosen. One could feel his spirit glide like Sýnin’s shadow over the paths and the trees, the streams and the shrubs, the buildings and the tents still waiting to be replaced by buildings.

Every settler had a story about Eivor, everyone from the Raven clan had several, and they were all too eager to regale the ever curious Ceolbert with them.

The settlement children told them of how Eivor had come by his wolf — and the wolf by its name — while Yanli told him how the two brothers had at a single shared glance decided to invite Rowan and her to stay.

And when, in going to the stables to check on his and Ceolbert’s horses, Leofrith caught sight of the shorn horse, he remembered Eivor sitting on Sigurd’s throne, dispensing his justice.

As was his right by the powers Sigurd had conferred on him in his absence.

Even so, Leofrith understood why Dag felt Eivor was usurping his brother’s role.

Leofrith had only really seen Sigurd Jarl that one day in Tamworth, when Ubba and Eivor had spoken for him. He knew of him from Ceolbert, who knew him well, and from Eivor, who knew him better, and from the way the people of the settlement spoke of their young, handsome, charismatic leader.

The Ragnarsson brothers knew Siguard and it was to Sigurd that the title of Lord of East Mercia had been bestowed in thanks for what he’d done for Ceolwulf. But Leofrith knew Ceolwulf’s highest esteem was for Eivor. Soma Jarlskona had never met Sigurd, nor had King Oswald. They only knew Eivor and though they had pledged their allegiances to his clan, their friendship and their love — Leofrith had seen in Grantebridge just how deep the bonds ran — were pledged to Eivor and it was to follow him that Birna and Finnr had left their masters.

It was this too that Dag resented, though in truth Eivor had done no more than what Sigurd had asked of him and done it well. Dag’s loyalty to his prince meant he couldn’t stand the thought that Eivor of the Raven Clan or Eivor Wolf-Kissed might one day be more readily recognised than Sigurd Jarl.

Leofrith had known countless men like Dag, always spoiling for a fight until they brought themselves to destruction — every army in the country had more than its fair share of them.

Ivarr Ragnarsson was such a one. He was like one of those wolves Leofrith had often seen in Dane camps, starved and beaten into ravening aggression, and kept on a strong chain lest they turn on their masters. By comparison, Dag seemed all bark but Leofrith wondered if one day, when they least expected it, he would finally bite.

That he hadn’t yet meant nothing. It might only be that he hadn’t yet found the means, the pretext, the opportunity to.

Leofrith had realised from the still-speculative looks he got that Dag did not know any more than the others how things really stood between Leofrith and Eivor and he could not afford to make a false accusation — or even a true one — against either. That could only lead to a challenge to the death. And while Eivor had bested Leofrith in combat, Leofrith had been grievously injured then, whereas he was nearly back to full strength now.

Dag knew this. Leofrith had gone raiding with them again, in part to hone the combat skills he would soon need again and in part because Eivor had been right — already he understood more of their way of fighting, of their camaraderie, of the things they respected and the behaviour they could not. He’dheard them sing songs and tell tales as the wind carried them along England’s waterways. He knew what it meant that they called him Eivor’s _drengr_ and took pride in it. Whatever Eivor’s amulet said, it would never equal the protection of his name. No Norse would dare to harm him now, likely no Dane either. And as Eivor’s reputation grew, so would the protection his name afforded Leofrith. And Ceolbert.

As though to give credence to Ceolbert’s misgivings, Eivor’s return was heralded by the fire-glow and billowing smoke that were visible to the south for days before his arrival and news brought by traders that Lunden was burning.

Eivor returned to say they’d been successful and that Lunden’s new leaders, Erke and Stowe, were good men and would make fine allies.

But beneath the veneer of victory he was blood-sick and bruised, and as Leofrith again and again dunked and wrung out a rag to wipe the blood and dirt from the pale skin, Eivor told him of horrors he would not have believed true if he had not been told by Eivor of them — of mutilated bodies dredged daily out of the river, of missing children and who had taken them and why.

“It’s all there in that book,” Eivor said, voice thick with renewed disgust.

He nodded at the tome at the foot of the bed, once again providing evidence Leofrith had not needed.

“More betrayal,” Eivor murmured as if to himself, “Tryggr was a good man. He ruled fairly and treated his men well, Erke and Stowe both swear it and I believe them. Stowe says Avgos was like a brother to him and Tryggr a father to them all. And yet, Avgos betrayed him — both of them, father _and_ brother — and for what? Blind ambition, nothing more. Because he thought life owed him more and because he thought he deserved to rule a city for whose welfare he cared nothing about. He and his allies brought it nothing but violence, division and destruction, all to further their own selfish ends.”

His pained gaze drifted back to the book and Leofrith set aside the basin and moved closer, pulling the smaller man into his arms. Eivor pressed a kiss against his collar bone then looked up at him.

“You and I can never hope to understand such men. Can we really hope to stop them?”

Leofrith’s raked his gaze over Eivor then pressed a gentle kiss onto his forehead. Eivor felt as cool as always, he spoke with the same soft, measured calm he did most things, and even the slight frown that creased his brow hinted at no deeper distress than when he offered Chewy a treat the wolf did not like. But Leofrith knew by now that Eivor was like the great fjords of his homeland and that the frozen surface hid the flow and eddy of his emotions.

“You need rest.”

“And I shall have it,” Eivor tried to reassure him but his smile was thin, “But first there is something I must do. I have put it off long enough.”

“Whatever it is it can wait,” Leofrith insisted, cradling the blond head in his large hands, “You are tired and you are injured.”

“It can’t wait,” Eivor said, breaking Leofrith’s hold and rubbing his hands over his eyes as if to wipe the sight of something from them, “I must know.”

He looked at Leofrith.

“I told you that Odin came to me and advised me to kill you.”

Leofrith nodded, swallowing down the resurfaced dread of the past.

“That was not the first time I saw him,” Eivor continued quietly, “When I reclaimed my father’s axe, when I had cleared our name of that dishonour, it was then Odin first came to me. When I killed Kjotve, he spoke to me. In Lunden he came to me again. He told me I should seize the city. It would have been easy after all that had happened. Erke and Stowe themselves would have accepted it and after them the rest of the city would have followed.”

Eivor pressed his forehead into the hollow at the base of Leofrith’s throat and splayed his hands over his chest as if to draw strength from him.

“After the first vision, I went to Valka and she made me a potion to see further,” Eivor looked up at Leofrith, “You cannot tell anybody this, it’s forbidden magic.”

Leofrith nodded helplessly, and shifted them both onto the bed, pulling blankets and furs over Eivor as if they might serve as a protective shell against the rest of the world. Eivor spoke of what he’d seen as if he’d fallen into a trance.

“Valka said it meant I would betray my brother, Sigurd,” Eivor said, finally returning to the present and looking up at Leofrith, “But that cannot be. I will never betray Sigurd. That is not my fate any more than it was ever my fate to rule Lunden. I was not wrong to spare you. It was written that I would. You can feel it, no? That it was always to be this way? The threads of Ceolbert’s destiny run through the fabric of both our lives, things are now as they should be — as they were always intended to be. So what did Odin mean by advising me otherwise? Was he testing me? Why would he tempt me to go against my fate? Odin is the Wise One, the All-Seeing — he is no trickster god.”

Leofrith pressed another long, heated kiss against Eivor’s forehead and tightened his grip on him, but he felt from the faraway tone with which Eivor spoke his next works that Eivor was lost to him.

“Every time I see a severed arm lying on the ground after battle I think of Sigurd and Valka’s prophecy. I can’t stand it anymore. I must have answers. I must know what it means. ”

“Do you know how Eivor’s parents died?” Leofrith asked of Ceolbert the next day as they stood under the great tree and looked out at the river.

Eivor had gone to Valka’s as planned and Leofrith couldn’t shake a restlessness, the same feeling he had on the eve of difficult battles.

“Sigurd told us the story on our way here,” Ceolbert reminded him gently, as they set off for the dock, “Though he did focus more on the rescue than on the reason for it.”

Yes. The fire and the wolf that had left lasting and visible marks on Eivor, unlike this wound which he’d carried inside himself.

“Do they really believe in their gods?

“As we do in ours. The strength of one’s faith varies from man to man, just as it is with us. Bragi says Eivor believes more than most and that is why he is so close to Valka, their seer, just as I might be close to my confessor. I believe in our God but then I was raised to from birth. If I had been raised to believe in theirs, would my faith be any weaker? Would I not believe in them strongly as Eivor does? ”

Yes, perhaps Eivor did believe more than most, perhaps they did not all see and hear their gods as clearly as he did, but they all believed. Leofrith had once called them pagans and heathens — without truly meaning it but even that now seemed like blasphemy.

“What do you know of their gods?”

“Only what Bragi has told me. It is a complicated pantheon,” Ceolbert explained ruefully, “But I believe I have the broad lines of it. It is worth the study, their gods are as important to them as ours is to us. We cannot hope to understand them without understanding these beliefs.”

“How do they differ from ours? What do you know of Odin?”

Ceolbert considered this as they wandered.

“Our God is eternal, He is everywhere,” Ceolbert said thoughtfully, pausing by the tiny statue of Odin on the path towards Reda’s tent, “He has no beginning and no end. Heaven has no beginning and no end. But the Danes and the Norse believe that Ragnarok will come and in that final battle between good and evil the gods will die.”

Leofrith stopped and stared.

“The gods die?”

“Odin, king of Asgard, falls to the black wolf, Fenrir, while Tyr, the god of justice, slays and is slain by the hound who guards the gates of Hel.”

Leofrith turned this over in his mind, saddened.

“It is a religion without hope.”

“The hope is in living a worthy life. The victory is in the striving and in dying well. I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand that,” Ceolbert smiled faintly, “But then Eivor doesn’t know our God or His Son as we do, he cannot understand his father’s sacrifice as we can.”

No, he could not, had not. He’d seen it only as cowardice, a dishonour he’d spent all his adult life trying to wipe. And when he finally had, his god had revealed himself to him.

Leofrith thought himself a man of God but he’d never heard his god’s voice. Eivor’s gods spoke to him, Eivor could speak with them, reason, argue, disagree, disobey. He agonised over that they would think of him and lived only to die worthy of them.

“Perhaps one day we shall tell him about Christ,” Ceolbert smiled.

“He does enjoy a story,” Leofrith admitted fondly, “He’ll like the one about the bread and the fish.”

“I wasn’t finished,” Eivor accused softly, “There was more to see.”

When the light had begun to fade and Eivor still hadn’t returned from Valka’s, Leofrith had gone to fetch him, pulling the blond from his trancelike sleep despite the seer’s warnings.

“You were finished for today,” Leofrith contradicted gently, helping Eivor sit up in bed before offering him a bowl of hot gruel.

They usually ate out in the longhouse with everybody else but Eivor was still unsteady on his feet.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Leofrith later asked when they were tucked under the furs for the night, Eivor caught tight in his arms.

“It was different,” Eivor murmured, “It wasn’t Odin as I’d seen him before, old and wise and one-eyed, but a younger god, the Havi, the high one, presiding over the hall of the Æsir. And I… I was him, I was inside him, seeing with his eyes and feeling everything he felt. His anger at the Nornir when they prophesied his death. Leofrith, he decided to fight his fate, to change it, I could feel it, how determined he is to save Asgard and himself. He’ll do anything.”

Leofrith listened, confused and lost but grasping, as Eivor spun the tale for him, of the attack and the fight on the Bifrost, of Loki and the Builder, of Havi’s suspicions pitted against his single-minded resolve to save Asgard at any cost, of the well and the wolf cub, of Tyr and Fenrir, of Loki and Fenrir’s true identity.

“Havi felt so betrayed, Leofrith, by Tyr. Loki tricked him into breaking his oath by not telling him who Fenrir really is but Tyr… Tyr siding with Fenrir and Loki pierced Havi’s heart. It may never stop bleeding.”

Eivor trailed off and Leofrith kissed his blond head.

“Did Tyr know that Fenrir is Loki’s child? Why the secrets? What trap is Havi walking into? What trap of fate am _I_ walking into?”

“Eivor, stop,” Leofrith pleaded quietly, “Stop. You’ll go mad. It is a fever-dream, nothing more.”

“The gods are trying to tell me something, Leofrith, or trying to warn me,” Eivor shook his head, looking into Leofrith’s eyes, “But I don’t understand yet.”

“You can’t, Eivor. You’re trying to see the shape of it before it is finished,” Leofrith said, resorting to Eivor’s own words to reason with him.

“You’re right,” Eivor murmured, huddling closer to Leofrith, “I will have to see it to the end.”

The lesson of the cairns was one he himself would have to learn, Leofrith realised when Ceolwulf’s next letter came, bringing with it news of a possible position for Ceolbert in Sciropescire.

Under Burgred Leofrith had been content to advise then accept and implement whatever his king decided. But he would have to do better for Ceolbert than he had for Burgred. If Ceolbert could not accept the path he proposed then Leofrith would have to think of another — of as many as it took to find a course of action Ceolbert could agree to.

A quiet voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“So, Sciropescire?”

“You’ve heard,” Leofrith turned his head as Eivor settled behind him on the bed, “We will stop in Tamworth to meet with Ceolwulf and so I can pick out some men for an escort.”

He felt Eivor let out a long breath and lay his head between his shoulder blades.

“I’m glad you’re going with him.”

“Ubba wants to send Ivarr,” Leofrith remarked, reaching up to rub the sudden ache in his shoulder, “But that is madness. You must tell him, Eivor.”

“He can spare no-one else,” Eivor sighed, rubbing Leofrith’s shoulder for him, “Halfdan is busy in the North and Ubba is needed in Ledecestrescire to hold the centre.”

“You could come. Nobody will object to that and Ceolbert could use your guidance.”

“I am needed elsewhere,” Eivor murmured, “Sigurd’s message has finally come.”

“Oxenefordscire?”

“Yes. I will come as soon as I can.”

Leofrith stroked a lean thigh.

“I don’t like having him around Ceolbert.”

“Ivarr’s trying to make a man of him in the only way he knows how,” Eivor sighed, “He’s still steeped in the old ways. We spoke of it the night before Ceolwulf’s coronation. He sees no honour in talking and shaking hands. He would have preferred Ceolwulf to be a puppet not a partner, and for Ceolbert to be a hostage. That, he would have understood. He’s just trying to find a role for himself. ”

“Is that all there is to it?” Leofrith asked at length.

“One day he will give Ubba a lot of trouble,” Eivor murmured against Leofrith’s neck, “But that’s Ubba’s problem.”

Leofrith moved, tipping Eivor onto the bed and trapping him beneath himself to give him a deep, lingering kiss. Then he pulled away and looked into the clear blue eyes.

“Eivor, promise me you’ll not drink any more of that potion if I’m not here.”

Eivor’s brow creased sharply in pain.

“I cannot promise you that. I once told you the truth when you needed to hear it, Leofrith. You cannot deny me this. I must know the fate of the High One.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	5. The Web of the Nornir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eivor catches up with Sigurd in Oxenefordscire and their plans start to unravel...
> 
> Eivor's PoV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a miserable chapter but then the Oxenefordscire arc is miserable so...  
> Please hang in there, the next chapter's coming soon and it's a lot less miserable <3

**THE WEB OF THE NORNIR**

_“To betray one so trusted, so close… it’s a dishonour worth a thousand deaths.”_

_— Eivor to Leofrith_

The shadow of apprehension that Eivor had carried with him from Asgard stayed with him until the day of his departure for Oxenefordscire, when it deepened.

“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Eivor promised Leofrith as he lingered in the strong arms, waiting for dawn, “Sigurd has been there for weeks, it probably won’t take long much longer.”

Leofrith said nothing to that and instead carefully rolled Eivor onto his back, covered him with the warmth of his own body and began to smother him in slow kisses.

There had been many moments since his dream-vision when Eivor had wanted Leofrith to distract him from the betrayal of Sigurd it seemed to portend and from the looming separation from both Leofrith and Ceolbert, but the Saxon had always done so with the most unrelenting gentleness. Leofrith had spent most of the night mapping every last inch of Eivor’s body with his hands and his mouth, his fingertips and his tongue, and often stared at him with unwavering intensity, as it trying to commit Eivor’s very being to memory — as if he too knew they would be separated for some time.

He was still doing it now, the prickle of his beard lighting up every nerve ending in the sensitive skin behind Eivor’s ear, his large calloused hands running along the inside of Eivor’s thighs, the blunt fingertips feeling their way into the crooks of his knees.

Eivor knew Leofrith was once again being slowly wracked between duty and instinct, as he’d once feared he would be, and that because it wasn’t in the Saxon’s nature to lie — not even distantly, not even by omission — he couldn’t help showing that he dreaded it.

Each time he left it became harder for Leofrith to let him, Eivor could see it in the set of his jaw and a hardness in the usually warm eyes. Leofrith loved Ceolbert like a son but not enough to forget Eivor’s absence.

Eivor felt Leofrith sink into him slowly and let out a long sigh, wrapping his arms more tightly around the powerful shoulders.

It would have been easier for them both if they hadn’t been so strongly attracted to each other, but as Leofrith covered Eivor’s mouth with his and pushed his tongue into it, Eivor found it impossible to regret any part of what there was between them.

Leofrith didn’t address the issue at all right until the moment when they were standing on the dock, the longship and its crew ready to go, and Eivor had already accepted that he wouldn’t. But then Leofrith came to stand close by him and the hooded eyes glowed with a familiar fire that the Saxon’s calm, quiet manner belied.

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

Eivor turned his mind away from the separation and the warming thought of Sigurd’s sunny smile and the time they’d spent together in Templebrough beat back the growing shadows in his mind. The relief did not last long, however, and his heart was clouded again when he reached Buckingham and found the town crawling with soldiers seeming hostile to Danes and Saxons alike.

His brother he found hiding away in a stinking fish hut with Basim.

His surprise at finding the situation in the shire so far from being resolved increased as he listened to Sigurd’s talk of Basim’s visions of his future and reached its paroxysm during his brother’s exchange with Lady Eadwyn.

Because saving the captured thegns served their purpose and Geadric’s, Eivor did not question Fulke’s importance too closely but Sigurd’s strange talk was mystifying enough that Geadric’s plain speaking felt like a brief return to sanity.

Sigurd’s suggestion that Eivor didn’t trust him felt like such a mortal wound that in defending himself Eivor all but confessed his fear of betraying his brother. Guilted and maimed, he agreed to the assault on Saint Albanes but by the time Eadwyn confronted them at Evinghou Tower, Eivor was past what he could bear.

_If there’s a price to be paid, I’ll pay it._

That he’d gone against Sigurd’s wishes, Eivor accepted, but his shock at Sigurd’s unjust accusations and the betrayal he felt at them was doubled by Havi’s and it was Havi’s anger even more than his own that nearly led him to lash out at Basim then Sigurd, but even as he’d held back from hitting his brother, from trying to knock the sharp reproaches from his mouth, he’d imagined the blow landing and seen on Sigurd’s cheek the streak of blood Havi’s arrow had left in Tyr’s palm and his anger had gone cold.

Once Sigurd and Basim had left, Eivor accepted Fulke’s help more because he didn’t want to feel alone than because he needed it, then once he was free to lick his wounds in private, Eivor tried once again to understand Sigurd. And failed.

Where was the Sigurd of Repton and Tamworth who’d been as one with Ubba Ragnarsson in their plan to put Ceolwulf on the throne and secure his clan’s hold on Ravensthorpe? He’d been made Lord of East Mercia for his help but now proposed to let Oxenefordscire descend into chaos while he chased after some trinket for reasons so personal he couldn’t even explain them to his own brother. How would they explain that to Ceolwulf and Ubba? How would they explain it to their clansmen in Ravensthorpe if they lost the goodwill of the Saxon king on whose land they had settled and the Dane king whose camp was the foundation of their settlement?

Eivor no longer recognised his brother and as he wandered the woods of Oxeneforda alone, Eivor thought of Odin and of hugr magic and of minds possessing bodies. He thought of Sigurd and his brother’s accusation that he did not understand what was truly at stake.

_You roll bones in a game you do not understand._

He longed for the comfort of Leofrith’s arms and of having someone to confide in. Leofrith wouldn’t understand but he would try to.

Eivor’s given word would have been his bond regardless but it didn’t help that he liked Geadric, who shared many of the qualities he admired in Leofrith — a sense of honour and moral rectitude, a character defined by open honesty — and he was reminded of it when he reached the forward camp at the ruined shrine and saw the thegn again. With a fort to infiltrate and defences to sabotage, for a time all was right with the world. He rode along a ridge and looked across to the hills crowned by Cyne Belle castle and wondered what the future would bring for them all — for Geadric, for Sigurd and himself.

_My thoughts are clouded with shadows of doom. Even this peaceful valley seems to hold hidden dangers._

It warmed his heart to hear Geadric stand up to Sigurd in his defence though he regretted the need for it. They should all have been on the same side and Sigurd’s attitude continued to divide them.

Eivor tried to meditate but for the first time in his life the thought of Sigurd had not given him peace or strength, and after a couple of false starts he gave up the effort and went to brood by the fire.

His brother was sitting on the far side of the camp by a different fire, his back to Eivor and evidently still nursing his resentment while Basim tried to soothe him and occasionally sent Eivor meaningful looks as if to signify that he too was helpless in the face of Sigurd’s displeasure.

Geadric came over carrying two tankards of ale.

“We could probably use that war-thegn of Burgred’s, Leofrith, for tomorrow,” he jested, handing Eivor one of the tankards and settling beside him, “Is he as the rumours say?”

“What do the rumours say?” Eivor smiled at having Leofrith’s presence so unexpectedly conjured up for him.

“Oh, only that he’s twice the size of the average man and fights like four. That the only man in Mercia who didn’t stand in fear of him is Burgred himself and that only because the man is demonstrably a fool.”

Eivor laughed softly.

“For once the rumours are not too exaggerated.”

“And you bested him,” Geadric remarked, draining the last of his ale.

“With difficulty,” Eivor confessed, “And I had the advantage. He was seriously injured by Ivarr Ragnarsson not long before, he shouldn’t have been able to hold his sword. I couldn’t have bested him in normal combat.”

Geadric set aside his tankard and stretched out by the fire, crossing his arms under his head and staring up at the sky.

“And yet you did. And then you spared him, even though he was your enemy and could become so again.”

“I don’t think he was ever my enemy,” Eivor remarked softly, looking down at his friend, “He was just following orders. Lady Eadwyn’s men are not our enemies, they’re just following orders. One way or the other we will have to be reconciled with them once this is all over,” he paused a moment, “You would like Leofrith, so would Thegn Holt. I hope you’ll have the chance to meet him.”

“You’re that sure of him?”

“Yes, so is Ceolwulf,” Eivor said mildly, “Leofrith’s been made advisor to Ceolbert.”

“His son, the aetheling?”

“Yes. He’s to become ealdorman of Sciropescire.”

Geadric seemed to consider this.

“That shows a greatness of spirit in Ceolwulf that I don’t think Burgred would have had. All this fighting, countryman against countryman, neighbour against neighbour, it makes us mean, it shrinks the soul. But you’re right. Once the fighting is over we’ll have to rebuild and become brothers again.”

“Yes, all of us. Saxons and Danes,” Eivor murmured, glancing at Sigurd’s back, “Brothers again.”

The next morning, before the assault, Eivor tried to meditate again and this time it was the thought of Leofrith that gave him the strength and calm he sought, and he went into battle feeling nearly as he usually did. Nearly, for as he and Geadric gave the order to attack and the men ran forward he heard Havi’s voice again.

_The fools! They run towards their doom._

The castle taken and Eadwyn defeated, Eivor joined Sigurd and there was more mad talk of visions and prophecies, cut short by the arrival of Ælfred’s and his men.

Eivor was astounded to hear Sigurd sue for peace by offering Ælfred to leave more than half of Oxenefordscire undefended and an exchange of hostages, chilled by the certainty that Sigurd would sacrifice him to Ælfred, the man Leofrith suspected of being at the head of the Order, as Odin would Tyr by asking him to put his arm in Fenrir’s maw. He could already feel the crunch when Basim offered himself but then Fulke ran in and Eivor once again felt the same burning hammer blow of betrayal he’d felt as Havi when Loki had revealed Fenrir’s true identity and the High One had looked his doom in the face.

_There will be a reckoning._

And then they took Sigurd and Eivor’s whole world collapsed.

Eivor carried the sorrow and the worry of what had happened all through the long journey home, aching to unburden himself to Leofrith, the only person who would not only understand his grief at Sigurd’s capture but might also help him solve the mystery of Sigurd’s behaviour and how the visions might explain it. He was well aware that he was no longer in any condition to make sense of things.

But as tall towers of the ruins at Duroliponte came into view, Eivor knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that when they reached Ravensthorpe he would not find Leofrith and Ceolbert there, though it was still a blow to find them absent from the dock when the longship docked.

“We leave for Sciropescire tomorrow, Dag. Make sure the ship and crew are ready.”

“Sciropescire?” Dag barked, “To play nursemaids to the _odlingr_ when Sigurd is—? Wolf-Kissed!”

“Tomorrow, Dag,” Eivor said firmly, ignoring the shouts that followed him to the longhouse.

The shock of Sigurd’s loss hit him afresh when he saw Randvi and felt the shame of having failed to keep her husband safe. It took the sight of the alliance map to remind him that he had news that should have gladdened them both but it tasted like ash in his mouth when he spoke it.

Fulke’s letter he could make no sense of save as confirmation that she was with the Order and that it had been a mistake to let Ælfred take Sigurd, but that Eivor had already known, and his need for Leofrith, to confide in him, was like gasping for air underwater. He went to wash in their pond, by Valka’s hut, and heard Leofrith’s voice remind him that he was trying to see the shape of things before they were finished.

He was still sick with worry for Sigurd and the shadowy threat that hung over their future, and the thought of sinking back into Havi’s mind with all its pressures and violent emotions filled him with dread. But he had to know and in any case he couldn’t face the thought of going back to the longhouse where people would stare at him and wonder why he had returned without their jarl. He knew he would find no comfort and no rest in his room and in his bed without Leofrith’s warmth and Leofrith’s arms around him. In Asgard too he would be without him because he knew from the last time that while he was there he would forget Leofrith.

This time the potion dropped Eivor from a great height, to the whistling sound of the wind in his ears as he fell and fell, wondering where he’d land.

He landed in water, warm water that caught and held him like an embrace, and as he hauled himself out of it he was surrounded by the scents of Asgard, of its flowering trees and shrubs, of its rich earth, and the sun that beamed down on all of it. The swell of love in his heart at the familiar surroundings and the reminder of what he was trying to protect was both his and Havi’s.

He watched, helpless, from within the god, as Havi kept his own counsel and tried to seem in control even as he struggled to keep together the threads of his fate — Asgard’s security, his blood-oath not to do Loki harm and trying to reconcile that with the prophecy of his death.

He watched, helpless, from within, as every one of Havi’s decisions, made with the specific intent of changing his fate and evading it, brought him inexorably closer to it, every step bringing him closer to his doom, ever more tangled in the web the Nornir had spun.

Further signs of Loki’s betrayals and trickery enraged Havi and saddened Eivor, clouding both their minds, driving them to greater secrecy and desperation. Eivor was staggered, as Havi was, by the revelation of the Builder’s true nature, more wounded by the knowledge that he had brought the enemy to the very heart of Asgard than by the Jotnar chieftain’s hammer.

The reproach of the other Aesir was the same reproach Eivor had seen in the eyes of his clansmen and even in Havi’s skin it flayed him alive, and it prompted in him the same flight response, to leave and find answers in some other place.

He woke from the dream with a gasping breath, wet with sweat.

_You may be the author of your own destruction._

Sigurd was in danger, of that Eivor had no doubt, but he did not know which course to take to help him. Every step he’d taken so far had only brought them both closer to disaster and he was glad he had Basim to lean on. It was the prophecy of the Nornir that had prompted Havi to ask Tyr to cage the wolf pup, then later task him with binding Fenrir on Lyngvi. Sigurd’s visions had pushed him to seek out Fulke and Eivor himself had all but brought her to Cyne Belle.

Eivor could barely breathe through his terror of it and knew he would not find the words to explain it all to Valka. It was to Leofrith he wanted to confess. To Leofrith, who had asked him not to drink the potion. Leofrith would disapprove but he would listen.

Throughout their journey to Sciropescire, Eivor tried to reassure his raiders by pretending that all was well, even while he ignored Dag’s accusing looks and accusing words, which struck too close to home.

He ached to be with Ceolbert and Leofrith, he could not reach them soon enough. He needed, more than anything, to be with people who would never believe him capable of betraying Sigurd, even when he himself had started to believe it.

The distant tors of Manstone Rock came into view and Eivor sagged in relief at the thought of being safe among friends for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for making Eivor suffer <3


	6. Homecomings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leofrith and Ceolbert head for Sciropescire and wait for Eivor to join them. 
> 
> Leofrith's PoV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much less miserable chapter full of Leofrith having Eivor-shaped thoughts — the comfort after all the hurt <3 
> 
> There will probably be more after the next chapter but I'm still debating whether to put it in this work or a new one. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**HOMECOMINGS**

_“Whatever remains of my son in this world, I believe it travels with you.”_

_— Ceolwulf II to Eivor_

Tamworth was a strange homecoming.

Leofrith was quartered in the same small building off the main hall that he had used under Burgred and as he looked around, alone while Ceolbert greeted his father, he could see Eivor’s image moving about it — picking up a trinket here, there helping himself to a swallow of stale ale to calm his battle-thirst, before finally stopping at the table where he’d found and read Leofrith’s journal.

When he was summoned to the main hall, Leofrith followed Eivor’s afterimage there, walking past the small enclosure where he’d paused to write a last letter to his sister before what he’d believed to be the final battle.

Once in Ceolwulf’s presence, Leofrith found he couldn’t meet his king’s gaze and sank to his knee.

“Stand, Leofrith, none of this between us,” Ceolwulf said with a wave, “Ceolbert says you had an easy journey here but all the same you shall have a few days to rest and make preparations before you continue onward to Quatford. The fighting continues but you shall have your pick for a company of men.”

“You are my king,” Leofrith said quietly, “I should be here seeing to Tamworth’s defences.”

“No, I will not have you serving day after day the whims of the man who deposed your king.”

“My king—.”

“Your place is with Ceolbert,” Ceolwulf held up a hand, “And it suits us all to have Ubba Ragnarsson in charge of the defences here.”

Leofrith bowed his head in acquiesce. He had bent the knee in surrender to Eivor and in fealty to Ceolbert and it seemed that that would be enough.

“Ceolbert’s letters from Ravensthorpe have warmed my heart these last weeks,” Ceolwulf murmured, “He writes so fondly of the settlement and its inhabitants. He writes more than fondly of you. And of Eivor.”

“They have become very close,” Leofrith admitted quietly, his deep affection for the two robbing his voice of its strength, “Even if you had not sent him, I believe Ceolbert would have found a way to follow Eivor to Ravensthorpe. There is something within the fabric of their souls that binds them.”

“Yes, I felt it from the first,” Ceolwulf nodded, “Even a month ago, I could not have imagined a Saxon prince finding so much common ground with a Dane, a Norse, so quickly. Ceolbert says that the two of you are also close and I am glad of it.”

“We both love your son,” Leofrith explained helplessly, “We both loved him before we ever met each other.”

“I know,” Ceolwulf sighed deeply, “If I could have you both by his side to guide and protect him always I would never again feel a moment’s worry over him.”

“Eivor carries Ceolbert with him everywhere he goes. I swear to you, my king, not an hour goes by that he does not think of your son’s safety and well-being,” Leofrith murmured, “And I will protect your son for as long as you wish it.”

“Knowing that brings me peace, thank you. God go with you and keep you, Leofrith.”

The welcome he received from his cheering men was equally warm and Leofrith found they bore him no ill will for choices that had led them to be held as enemy combatants after the fall of Tamworth and Repton, right up until the moment he’d been reinstated as thegn. Their resentments seemed to rest where his did, with Burgred.

Looking over the familiar faces, Leofrith began a mental list of those he would take with him to Sciropescire and took note of those whose faces he sought out and could not find.

By rights he ought to return to his lands to levy fresh recruits, particularly since Ceolwulf had increased his land holdings. The thought of doing so after what Burgred’s stubbornness had cost sickened Leofrith and he was not sorry that because Ceolbert was already expected in Quatford there would be no time for that.

Leofrith knew that those thegns who had agreed to witness Ceolwulf’s charters had divided up between them the lands and wealth of those those who had not, but even so there was guilt in him at knowing that he had been given more despite his dying loyalty to Burgred than many who had pledged their support to Ceolwulf from the start.

There was no rancour from Ubba Ragnarsson either and the Dane greeted him as if they’d always fought on the same side. Eivor’s influence again, no doubt.

“I know things between you and Ivarr have been difficult, but if you do not have a Dane representative Rhodri will think us divided and weak. I have nobody else I can send to stand for me.”

“But does Ivarr speak for you?”

“I can’t be sure,” Ubba admitted, “I only hope he will let Ceolbert speak for us but in truth I would be surer of you.”

“I can advise Ceolbert but I can’t speak for him. Eivor will join us as soon as he can.”

“And when he does you should know that he speaks for me, absolutely,” Ubba nodded, concluding their discussion, his gaze going to the amulet around Leofrith’s neck, “That’s beautiful. Did Eivor make it for you?”

“He says it’s a protective charm,” Leofrith confirmed.

The Dane’s eyebrows quirked at this.

“Effective,” he remarked thoughtfully.

On the journey from Tamworth to Quatford, Leofrith had occasion to wonder if it would be effective against Ivarr.

Few things helped a king conduct negotiations smoothly like having at his back a greatsword nearly as tall as himself, held by a war-thegn built like an ox. It was why Burgred had kept him around, and Leofrith hoped his presence would be as dissuasive to Ivarr as Ceolwulf no doubt hoped it would be to Rhodri of the Britons.

Ceolbert’s stand-in, Bishop Deorlaf, came out to welcome them, looking slightly ill-at-ease in the company of the Ragnarsson brother.

“Ceolbert, little twig, I see the Ravens have been feeding you well,” Ivarr grinned, “Leofrith, you have nothing to fear from me. We are allies now and Randvi writes that your wolf-kissed warrior will be here soon.”

“Wolf-Kissed?” Deorlaf looked askance at them.

“Wolf-Kissed, Raven-Bearer… Our Eivor has as many names as Odin himself. Odin the Wise One, the High One, the Mad One,” Ivarr laughed, “He is the brother of Sigurd jarl, our new Lord of East Mercia.”

“The Mad One?” Leofrith couldn’t help repeating, but Ivarr appeared not to have heard him.

They were apprised of the situation with Rhodri and in particular of Ivarr’s capture of the Briton king’s brother, which both strengthened their position and complicated it, and in the following days, Leofrith watched Ceolbert debate with himself what it was that he should do to break the stalemate, often pacing about Leofrith’s quarters while Leofirth sat by and listened.

“I understand why Rhodri does not want to negotiate under duress,” Ceolbert acknowledged, “But he would not even have come to the negotiating table if Ivarr hadn’t captured his brother. I cannot be sure Ivarr will give Gwriad if I ask him to, and Rhodri refuses even to pay the weregild on him.”

If it came to armed conflict, Leofrith would ready the men and devise a strategy, but he was helpless to advise Ceolbert in what levers they might use to move Rhodri to an agreement without violence. Ceolbert had Eivor’s same instinct for finding common ground, for finding the aims that all the parties could work together to achieve, but he didn’t yet have the Norse’s knack for it, he simply didn’t have the experience.

“You miss him. Eivor.”

“I do,” Ceolbert conceded, “I miss his counsel. But I carry him within me always. I can summon him whenever I need by going fishing or stacking stones. I don’t miss him as you must. Do you ever know peace, Leofrith, when he is not there?”

“No,” Leofrith finally confessed in a quiet breath.

He’d felt joy, he’d felt calm, he’d felt the empty quiet that came with exhaustion. But peace, true peace, he’d only ever felt in Eivor’s presence. Only since that shining moment in Repton when Eivor’s words and the truth of his calling to Ceolbert had finally soaked into his being, where it had held fast ever since.

“If Eivor cannot resolve this, it will come to a fight,” Ceolbert murmured, lost in thought for a moment before he met Leofrith’s gaze again, “I should like to be of more help. Eivor once told me — after he fought you — that I should not have intervened because it was not my fight. But of course it was. I am my father’s son and so the fight for his throne, which will one day pass to me, must always also be my fight. That was what I thought then. But that’s not what he meant, is it? He meant that I should not _fight_.”

Leofrith waited, watching the young aetheling stood before him with head bowed and brows creased in thought.

“I know I am not a strong fighter and that I never shall be,” Ceolbert finally resumed, “I do not enjoy the pain and waste of warfare, I never will, and I do not like fighting my friends.”

He paused and looked at Leofrith who still sat, elbows on his knees and hands loosely clasped, listening.

“But I do not want people to think I lack courage.”

“You do not lack courage, Ceolbert,” Leofrith smiled fondly, “And there is no need for you to prove that you do not with a sword. We hope to achieve peace in your father’s time, that is what we fight for. If we succeed, your task, in your reign, will be to keep that peace, through concord and negotiation. You will need the strength to lay down your terms with conviction and the confidence to make the concessions you think necessary. Ivarr prevents you, but you’ve said that your instinct would be to release Gwriad as a gesture of good faith. Ivarr might think it weakness, but I know it would be courage. And so would Eivor.”

Ceolbert started at the floor, deep in thought, but when he raised his head again to meet Leofrith’s gaze, he stood a little straighter and a little taller.

“Thank you, Leofrith.”

Later, much later that night, Leofrith stood at a window, looking out towards Ravensthorpe and thinking of Eivor as he breathed in the warm night air.

He’d partaken of the serving lad who’d spent all of dinner ogling him then turned up at his door late in the evening bearing a bowl of ripe white peaches that he’d gone to deposit on the table. Leofrith had had him bent over that table, the same one he now settled at to write Eivor a letter.

Eivor was on his way, he and the letter were likely to pass each other by, but that mattered little, Leofrith did it more for comfort than anything else. He might not even send it and instead leave it on the bedside for Eivor to find when he arrived.

Letter finished, Leofrith’s gaze drifted to the bowl and he selected the ripest of the peaches, whose colour reminded him of that along Eivor’s cheekbones, where the the sun hit them, then rubbed the pad of his thumb over the soft, velvety skin as he held it to his nose and breathed in the scent of sunshine on it, like the scent of calendula on Eivor’s skin, before sinking his teeth into it slowly, its juice filling his mouth.

Always big for his age, Leofrith had attracted that sort of attention long before reaching full manhood and had early on learnt to take what he needed — but only once, to avoid misconceptions.

Only Eivor had ever obtained more from him. Only Eivor ever would.

“Thegn Ceolbert, Thegn Leofrith.”

Eivor smiled at them and they exchanged pleasantries as they walked up the path lined with men-at-arms. Leofrith’s men, whom Eivor had last seen as enemies at Tamworth and Repton.

“You look well, Ceolbert. Being an ealdorman suits you.”

To eyes who had never looked upon Eivor before he probably looked like any other Dane fresh from a raid, battle-bloodied and weary, but Leofrith knew better and it tainted his joy at seeing Eivor again.

Ceolbert was not fooled either.

“You seem to have rushed here, Eivor. I hope you are not too tired.”

“I’m fine,” Eivor said, startled, “Forgive my appearance, I stopped only briefly at Ravensthorpe on my way here.”

“We expected as much and took the liberty of laying by some clothes for you,” Ceolbert said with a slow nod as they came to a halt before a door, “I look forward to talking more at dinner. I only wish we could give you more time to rest.”

“There is no need, my lord, I only need to wash away the travel-dust,” Eivor smiled fondly.

Ceolbert excused himself with an elegant inclination of his head and Leofrith followed Eivor into their room and closed the door behind them.

“Your quarters?” Eivor asked conversationally, though the familiar weapons and armour, the maps and the papers strewn about the place must have made that evident. Ceolbert’s things too, his scrolls and codexes, which showed how much time he spent in the warlord’s quarters.

Leofrith nodded curtly.

“Tell me what you wouldn’t say in front of Ceolbert.”

All at once, Eivor’s mask fell and he swayed against Leofrith, wrapping his arms tightly around him and burying his face against Leofrith’s throat. Leofrith wrapped his arms around Eivor and let him stay there as he kissed the top of the silver-gold head.

“Ælfred has Sigurd,” Eivor finally said in barely above a whisper, as if the effort of speaking the words had extinguished his voice.

“What?” Leofrith asked, pulling away to cradle Eivor’s head in his hands and look into his eyes, “How?”

Eivor only closed his eyes and shook his head, the pain of it evidently still too near, and Leofrith enfolded him in his arms again.

“You must tell Ceolwulf. And Ceolbert.”

“I have written to Ceolwulf,” Eivor murmured, “And I will tell Ceolbert, but not today. For now I want him to know that Oxenefordscire is secure so he can focus on Sciropescire.”

Leofrith nodded and kissed the top of his head.

“I missed you,” Eivor whispered, “I missed you both so much.”

The slight crease of worry between Leofrith’s brows deepened at Eivor’s tone.

This wasn’t the same expansive relief Eivor had expressed after East Anglia. This was anguish.

“And I missed you,” he murmured hoarsely, tightening his grip on Eivor.

They would soon be expected at dinner where they would have to talk politics and strategy and so there was no time to press the blond, even if he’d been inclined to. No, Eivor would need his mind as clear and as eased as Leofrith could make it.

“Did you pick up any strays in Oxenefordscire?” he teased affectionately.

He smiled in delight as Eivor looked up at him wearing a rueful expression. He showed Eivor the thick white wolf pelt he’d acquired for him and the embroidered tunic of fine wool Ceolbert had gifted him, then helped the blond wash and dress while he recounted the circumstances of Dandelion Puff’s adoption and his other encounters in Oxenefordscire.

“The men have started calling me the Lion of Mercia,” Leofrith remarked as evenly as he could manage, trying to modulate the heat of his gaze, “Seems they heard it from Ubba’s warriors.”

“Really?” Eivor asked mildly, the purest look of innocence in his clear blue eyes, “That sounds nice.”

Leofrith continued to rub his thumb along Eivor’s jawline gently, taking in the expressive brows, the pale lashes veiling the soft gaze, the long line of his nose, then brought the pad to rest against Eivor’s bottom lip and pressed lightly, coaxing him to open his mouth.

As he kissed Eivor and held him tightly, he could feel the nervous tremor that shook the blond’s body and so kept a tight leash on his hunger.

“After dinner, you will tell it all,” he warned Eivor quietly, the blond head firmly bracketed by his large hands.

Eivor’s brows creased again but he eventually nodded.

Bishop Deorlaf had heard much of Eivor from all of them but even so, he seemed pleasantly surprised by the man himself and he and Ceolbert spent much of dinner in conclave with Eivor, no doubt laying out the finer points of their situation.

Eivor liked Deorlaf, which did not surprise Leofrith. The Bishop was a wise and gentle soul, he and Ceolbert had already formed a bond that would probably last all their lives, built on a common reading of a common faith and a commonality of character, a gentleness and a sweetness that Eivor shared, warrior though he was.

Ivarr was in attendance too, a surprise since he’d never accepted a dinner invitation before, and though Leofrith owned that Ivarr’s pleasure at seeing Eivor seemed genuine, he also deeply mistrusted the things that gave Ivarr Ragnarsson joy.

“That is a real warrior, a true Dane,” Ivarr told him as they watched Eivor show Ceolbert a new seax he’d acquired.

“I thought Eivor was Norse,” Leofrith remarked dryly, which earned him a dirty look from the Dane.

“Ubba and Sigurd spend more time choosing beads for their hair than sharpening their swords, but Eivor…” Ivarr continued, relishing the name and the words, “Eivor is a true _drengr_ , he knows what it takes to get things done. Deorlaf and young Ceolbert might convince him to try diplomacy but Eivor will soon see what Rhodri really is. A king to be replaced.”

He glanced at Leofrith and his amulet, a gleam in his eye.

“They call you Eivor’s _drengr_ now. You will do as he says?”

“I am Ceolbert’s to command,” Leofrith said, stiffening at Ivarr’s mirthless laugh.

Once he was alone again with Eivor, he was relieved to see the blond seemed calmer, his mind focussed on the task at hand, and he regretted the need to bring up the pain of the recent past again but he knew Eivor and it would not do to let it fester longer than it already had.

“Tell me about Sigurd,” he prompted, once Eivor was safely tucked in his bed and in his arms, warmly lit by a wealth of candles to drive away the shadows.

But as Eivor began to speak, Leofrith’s heart sank. He’d dreaded to hear of a battle against Ælfred's forces at the cost of lives and perhaps even the loss of some land in Oxenefordscire, of Sigurd captured and perhaps injured in the fight. This was not a disaster of that sort but Leofrith briefly wondered if he wouldn’t have preferred news of war with Wessex to the news of Sigurd’s visions and prophecies. War he understood, with these prophecies and visions of Norse gods, doubled by Fulke’s heresies, he felt himself completely out of his depth.

He also ached at hearing he hurt and the confusion in Eivor as he spoke of Sigurd’s behaviour, never angry, only uncomprehending, betrayed. He wondered at what role was played by Basim, Hytham’s mentor, whom he’d never met but of whom he’d heard, and whose influence on Sigurd he mistrusted.

“We will get him back, Eivor, whatever it takes.”

“I know, I know,” Eivor said, though apparently more to convince himself, “Basim is trailing them, once he knows where Sigurd is being held he will send word. Sigurd should never have agreed to go with Ælfred, it was not a fair trade. We had Eadwyn, the invitation she extended to Ælfred — which she never had the authority to extend — had lapsed. I know Sigurd only wanted to spare us all another battle but for Ælfred and his men to stay on Mercian soil was already—!”

“Shh, Eivor, it is done now. We will get your brother back. He is a lord of Mercia now. Both Ceolwulf and Ubba Ragnarsson will stand beside you. Ceolbert and I will stand beside you.”

Eivor nodded but when Leofrith kissed him, slow and deep, he could feel Eivor still unable to settle, still shaken by some anxiety.

“You went to see that woman, Valka,” he guessed, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.

“I had to,” Eivor whispered.

Leofrith sighed and held him tighter.

Even he could see the truth of this. He didn’t believe there were any more answers in Eivor’s visions than there were in Sigurd’s but he understood why Eivor felt compelled to seek them.

“Tell me.”

By now he knew more about Odin and his fate, from Ceolbert and from the friendlier of Ivarr’s men, but as a story, as one might hear the stories in the bible. Hearing it from Eivor, whose experience of it, whose anguish at it, felt so near and so human, made it all seem real and even Leofrith, who disbelieved, felt a chill go down his spine.

“Do you see?” Eivor asked him, “Havi will ask Tyr to place his hand in Fenrir’s mouth as a pledge of their good faith, _knowing_ that it is a trick. He does it because he knows Fenrir means the end of Asgard and his death, and it is the best way, the _only_ way he can think of, to save them all. I already chose Geadric over Sigurd because it seemed right in the circumstances. It seemed a small thing but—.”

“Eivor, Geadric was the right choice, you had both pledged to him, as your agreement with Ceolwulf and Ubba and your responsibility to Ravensthorpe dictated. Sigurd broke his oath, not you. Sigurd forced you into that betrayal, if you must think of it as such. It was not your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was, it only matters that it happened,” Eivor corrected, “And it might happen again. What choice does Fate have for me that will lead me to betray Sigurd? How can I avoid it? How many times did Havi make just such choices until—?”

Leofrith caught Eivor’s head in his hands and forced him to look up into his eyes.

“Listen to me. I know you. You are Eivor of the Raven clan. You are loyal to your jarl and you love your brother, Sigurd.”

For several heartbeats, several long breaths, Eivor stared at him, pupils blown wide, then closed his eyes, breathed out and nodded.

“I am Eivor of the Raven clan.”

Leofrith gave him another long kiss and this time felt Eivor respond, soft and pliable.

“I missed you,” the blond whispered between kisses, rolling onto his back so that Leofrith ended up on top of him, “Leofrith…?”

“Are you sure?” Leofrith asked and was answered by a hard kiss chased with a soft bite.

Eivor too was a homecoming and Leofrith slowly sank into the familiarity of Eivor’s scent and his skin, of Eivor’s fingers in his hair and Eivor’s teeth against his skin as he instinctively sought out all the sensitive spots he’d found and committed to memory over the weeks they’d known each other — an ear, the shadow of a collarbone, a scar healed over a once-cracked rib, that one particular vertebrae halfway down the deeply indented spine, just there, at the tail end of an inked line. He listened for Eivor’s soft moan when he breached him and the bitten back gasp wrought by each slow thrust, the tightening grip of Eivor’s fingers on his shoulders as he increased the pace and finally brought them both release. He sucked the sweat from Eivor’s skin and shared the taste of it with him when he covered Eivor’s mouth with his in an open-mouthed kiss and the blonde sucked it from his tongue, then cradled the blonde head between his hands and kissed the pale forehead softly.

“I missed you so much,” Eivor murmured again, gazing up at Leofrith with soft blue eyes.

Leofrith stared at the magnificent eyes, the pale lashes that framed them, and the pale brows that lent them so much of their expression. Despite everything, all the things that had kept them apart and all the things Leofrith couldn’t understand, this was still Eivor — _his_ Eivor — and he knew now in his heart that no matter where their respective paths too them they would always find their way back to each other.

And this no matter how far Eivor’s path took him, even if it took him to a realm where Leofrith could not follow. Asgard was not heaven, not even to Eivor, but it was an afterlife, a place he aspired to go to after death and Leofrith found himself wondering.

“What is Asgard like?”

Eivor tilted his head up for a kiss then tucked himself back under Leofrith’s chin and sighed.

“Like the best of England and the best of Norway.”

Bonus: 

(Serious and important fic research)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't been to see Deorlaf and Ceolwulf after the Sciropescire arc, I recommend doing so, both meetings are poignant and perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Subscribe for new chapters!


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